At the Alaska meeting with Donald Trump, Wladimir Putin showed his greatest talent: he spanned his network-and the US president grabbed it.
His limousine with the Moscow license plate was on the roller field of the air force basket Elmendorf-Richardson. The Aurus, the Russian president’s company car, was placed in particular for the summit. But Vladimir Putin got into another car. He took a seat in Donald Trump’s presidential car “The Beast”. A unique proof of trust – a innocent observer could believe.
But Putin does not trust anyone in the political world. Every step follows a calculation. The moment the doors of the “Beast” struck, Putin Trump had where he wanted to have it: in his network.
At the KGB, Putin once had the less flattering nickname “The Moth.” In Alaska, however, he was the spider. He carefully prepared the sticky network for his victim. The place? Anchorage was a suggestion of Putin, as he himself admitted. He allowed the Kremlin chief to keep one of his history lectures on the glorious Russian history.
The participants? Dictated and sorted out in back rooms from the Russian side. For example, Keith Kellogg was excluded from the summit – according to media reports, Putin’s request. Kellogg was too Ukraine-friendly for Putin.
The reception? A war hero worthy. While the war criminal Putin put on the well-behaved Trump, the US President donated to him at least three times.
And then the crowning glory: the invitation to the back seat of the “Beast”. When the sedan drove off, Putin could not help but a satisfied grin. It said: I have him.
video | Here Putin drives in Trump’s “The Beast”
Player is loaded
At that moment, all attempts to limit the format of the summit discussions to a constellation of six people (the presidents, their foreign minister and consultants) failed. Now Putin had his tête-à-tête with Trump-in such an intimate atmosphere that she looked almost indecent. And here Putin was finally able to dribble the poison in the ear into his network.
A discipline that Putin masterfully masters. The former Russian oil Mikhail Chodorkowski once told Talent Putin to power: “He is a very talented KGB man. If you are left, Putin will be in such a way that you are also left. You like nationalists, Putin will give you to a nationalist. Russian oligarch, which is part of the opposition today. So Putin was able to run around on the nose.
He was also one of Putin’s supporters at the beginning. “How much I was wrong,” says Chodorkowski today. A sentence that Trump could say in the not too distant future. Because in Alaska he has succumbed to Putin’s talent.
