Inside Anchorage, the city where the two presidents will play a Ukraine chess game
Directly opposed to Civic Center, which is waiting for the meeting of the world’s media on Saturday between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin.
On Thursday, the door rarely stops opening. Better for the mother and daughter operators who have a poster with the “Ukraine” poster glued on the porch of the café Karin and Jessica Johnson.
“Everyone knows where we stand, Jessica Jessica, who is a third generation born and raised Alaska, says.
Karin and Jessica Johnson run Dark Horse Cafe in the city center of Anchorage, where they proudly exhibited their support to Ukraine.Credit: Michael Koziol
“It’s just a little disturbing,” says my mother, Karin. “I don’t think it is honorable to leave the people of Ukraine hanging and not to participate in any debate about peace.”
Jessica says he does not recognize the indigenous people who are excited about the visit of Russian President Vladimir Putin. “I don’t trust your intentions, and I don’t know how I feel about being a war criminal in my state.” Karin says that the US has chosen a convicted criminal, so maybe that’s not a surprise.
The meeting, undisputed, has been less than 300,000 people less than 300,000 people since the Great Alaska earthquake in 1964, perhaps Richard Nixon invites Japan’s emperor Hirohito to the United States in 1971.
This event was published worldwide, as a Japanese ruler who ruling for the first time on foreign soil, Trump and Putin would be inevitable.
But there is much more driving about it. The future of the people of Ukraine and the world’s global society is tolerant of a Russian aggression campaign that has terrified years. Now, the provocative of this war will face with the man who believes that he is uniquely positioned to end him – but so far failed.
One -day summit at the Elmendorf Air Force Base is a great logistics initiative in a short time.
‘I want Trump to look at Putin’s eyes, see his soul, and realize that he cannot be negotiated.’
Julian Hayda, Razom for Ukraine
Anchorage moaned under the weight of attention (high season above tourism); Hotels are full, it is impossible to obtain recruitment cars and flights to this isolated part of the world are more expensive than usual.
The US President describes the expectations by defining the match as a means of measuring Putin’s intention. On Friday (this meeting is organizing the second meeting. This is like a chess game. ”
“I don’t want to use ‘Divvy things’, but not a bad term,” Trump said. However, he said that the first meeting was one of the four chances that would fail, and in which he warned “serious consequences ..
The media members are gathering near the Airbase entrance in Anchorage the day before the summit.Credit: Bloomberg
I meet Ostap Yarysh and Julian Hayda from Ukraine Razom (“Together”) for Ukraine in the Dark horse. They put signs around Anchorage and go to a series of protests planned for the next 24 hours. Although they are skeptical about the summit, Trump hopes that Putin is not serious in the end of the war, or that Trump’s estimated 20,000 Ukrainian children, who were kidnapped by Russia.
In 2001, George W. Bush said that he looked at Putin in his eyes and çalışmış He could understand his soul ”.
Julian Hayda (left) and Ostap Yarysh from Ukraine for Ukraine. Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin are in Anchorage in front of the meeting.Credit: Michael Koziol
Orum I want Trump to look at Putin’s eyes, see his soul, and realize that he cannot be negotiated, Hay Hayda says.
Ukrainian activists also state that Russian fur traders killed hundreds of indigenous alas near Kodiak Island in the Gulf of Alaska on August 14th, the anniversary of the 1784 Awa’iq massacre. Some estimates put death on thousands of people.
At the closest points in the Bering Strait, the mainland Alaska and the Russian Far East are less than 100 kilometers. Of course, these are largely deserted areas in the most challenging conditions on the planet. Alaska was the Russian region until 1867, when it was sold to the USA. It did not become a state until 1959.
Vladimir Putin and former US President George W. Bush often established a convincing relationship.Credit: Reuters
“The people here learn their history, Hay Hayda says. “They learn that this is a Russian colony.
“To see that being again in 2025 is deeply personal for many Alaskalı and that it is resonance for many Americans. So this war criminal falls from the middle of Anchorage to fall from the sky.”
In front of the summit, Alaska Downtown is a poster at Downtown Anchorage.Credit: Bloomberg
The others are not so sure. I am talking to Emeritus Economy Professor Gunnar Knapp at Alaska University. letter Anchorage Daily News Condemn Trump’s decision to accept this bad man in the US region and to give him a “a platform of propaganda for his lies”.
Knapp said he would usually be excited to see Alaska host a meeting between the president and the world leader. “Normally Alaskas are developing on this kind of interest, or he says. “This is a little big.”
This time there is protests and discomfort. But Knapp is not convinced of most people. He predicts that the number of people who know or think about the history of Russia in Alaska is “small .. And Alaska is a solid red condition; He voted for Trump three times and two senators and a congress member Republican.
The protest outside a shopping center in Anchorage in the afternoon of Thursday, local time.Credit: AP
Knapp, “Wow, our hero, comes to the state, will be a large number of Alaskalı.
In the meantime, Knapp’s European friends are in contact with him about his fears of what can pass in his hometown. “This is not what Alaska is known, or he says.
In the afternoon of Thursday, up to 1000 pro -Ukrainian, anti -Trump protesters, just south of the city center, shaking the flags of Ukraine, holding the provocative signs and listed a transitive choir by the drivers.
Tasha Boyer Dunbar, a 27 -year -old born and raised in Alaska, was afraid that there was nothing to be won from the meeting and that it would worse the conflict between Russia and Ukraine. “Frankly, I was surprised that it was,” he said.
Dunbar carried a sign that carries the faces of Kicker and Trump and Putin: orum I can see the fascists from my house. ” Referring to a famous line Saturday night live Alaska Governor and Vice President Umutlu Sarah Palin is mocking.
71 -year -old Nancy McManamin said: “I think it seems bad in the international arena to have a war penalty meeting with our personal crime in Alaska.”
Tasha Boyer Dunbar said that the meeting has no meaning.Credit: Michael Koziol
A few participants in the rally were afraid that Trump would sell Alaska back to Russia, and that they saw rumors spread to internet forums.
In Alaska, there are Russian influence pockets, especially in the light of writer David Ramseur’s “melting of the ice curtain” that accompanies the end of the Cold War. St. Mark Kalashnikov, a Russian indigenous and US resident of the innocent Russian Orthodox Cathedral, said that he knew many people suffering from the war in the war.
“At least it is reassuring to see that there is a little communication, Çok Zirve said. “We are trying to do what is requested from us, to come together and pray as a local community.”
Mark Kalashnikov, a native of Russia living in the United States, is at the St innocent Russian Orthodox Cathedral in Anchorage.Credit: AP
Downtown Diner Anchorage Pel’meni, Restaurant worker Becky Morris, who serves with Russian -American ornaments of Russian origin, was disappointed that he could not see Trump or Putin when he was on the air base.
He said that the Russian leader would not just give up [on Ukraine] And go home. I just want the war to stop, ”he said. That’s all I hope. “
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