Putin is ‘laughing’ after Trump’s peace efforts, says EU’s top diplomat

It’s “clear that Russia does not want peace,” she told BBC Radio 4.

“Any promises that Putin has given so far, he hasn’t kept,” she said, adding that the Alaska summit had been a public relations jackpot for the Kremlin.

“This is what he [Putin] wanted,” Kallas said. “It was clear before the meeting that he wants the picture, but he got so much more. He got such a welcoming in America.”

Calling Trump’s efforts to broker a truce “welcome,” Kallas said the Russian ruler was nonetheless less inclined to come to the negotiating table after Alaska “because he has achieved what he wanted from this meeting.”

“Putin is just laughing, not stopping the killing but increasing the killing,” she added.

Trump’s whirlwind diplomacy in the last two weeks, including the summits in Alaska and Washington, has yet to extract any concessions from Moscow, which has not backed down from its maximalist demands — namely that Ukraine give up vast swathes of territory in its eastern Donbas region, which Russian troops have partially occupied, and renounce joining NATO.