The Hour of the Autocrats: How Putin and Kim Are Shuffling Their Cards Before the Alaska Summit and Blowing All Dimensions

In the icy cold of Alaska, two men will meet on Friday whose handshake could shake the world order. Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin plan to negotiate at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson over nothing less than the future of Europe – and possibly over the redivision of Ukrainian territory.

But what is staged as a bilateral summit is in truth part of a multi-layered geopolitical chess game in which the pieces have long been set in place. The recent phone call between Putin and Kim Jong Un, just 48 hours before the Alaska summit, sends an unmistakable signal: Moscow is not entering the negotiations alone, but as part of a growing alliance of autocrats.

The choreography of this phone call was as precise as it was unsettling. While Putin thanked the North Korean dictator for the “bravery, heroism and self-sacrificing spirit” of his soldiers in the Ukrainian border region of Kursk, Kim in return promised unconditional support for “all measures that the Russian leadership will take in the future as well.” This wording is alarming in its absoluteness – it is the equivalent of a blank check for future escalations. Particularly explosive: Putin informed Kim about his upcoming talks with Trump, a detail Pyongyang’s state media prudently omitted. It reveals the asymmetric nature of this partnership, in which North Korea supplies military cannon fodder but is excluded from the major diplomatic maneuvers.

Research shows that the dimensions of the North Korean-Russian military cooperation blow away all notions of what would have been considered unthinkable just a few years ago. Fifteen thousand North Korean soldiers are already fighting on Russian soil against Ukrainian troops, according to South Korean intelligence – a number equivalent to the troop strength of a complete division. Added to this are massive weapons deliveries, including artillery and ballistic missiles, replenishing Russia’s depleted arsenals. Even more disturbing is the announcement to send thousands of North Korean construction workers and deminers to the embattled Kursk region. These men will not come as regular workers, but as forced laborers of a totalitarian regime that barters its citizens like merchandise.

This military entanglement between Moscow and Pyongyang represents a fundamental breach of all norms of international law. A state under the harshest UN sanctions and whose nuclear program threatens regional stability in East Asia is becoming an active participant in war in Europe. The international community, which for decades has tried to isolate North Korea and force it to the negotiating table, is now confronted with the perverse reality that Kim Jong Un is renting out his soldiers as mercenaries to the highest bidder. It is cynicism of the highest order when Putin praises these men for their “heroism” – soldiers who had no choice, who are dying thousands of kilometers from their homeland in a war that is not theirs, for a dictator who trades their lives for oil, grain and technology.

While Putin consolidates his alliances, Europe’s leaders are desperately scrambling for influence over Trump. The videoconference scheduled for Wednesday under the leadership of Chancellor Friedrich Merz resembles an attempt to build a dam against the flood. Merz, Macron, Meloni and other top European politicians will try to convince Trump not to make unilateral deals with Putin. Their message will be clear: every ceasefire must begin with a complete halt to hostilities, and any territorial reorganization requires the consent of Ukraine and Europe. But the reality is sobering. Trump has already spoken of “land swaps” as if this were a real estate transaction in Manhattan and not the sovereignty of a European state.

The weakness of the European position is revealed in its dependence on American support. Without US intelligence, without American weapons systems and without Washington’s political weight, Europe would hardly be able to continue supporting Ukraine. This dependence makes Merz and his colleagues supplicants who must hope that Trump’s vanity and his desire for a historic deal do not tempt him into premature concessions. The irony is bitter: the very European conservatives who once hailed Trump as a beacon of hope must now watch as he possibly dismantles Europe’s security architecture over their heads. Particularly worrying is Trump’s naive self-assessment that he can tell within minutes whether Putin is serious. “Because that’s what I do. I make deals,” he boasted to reporters – a statement of almost frightening overconfidence in the face of an opponent who has been in power for a quarter of a century and has manipulated every American president since Clinton. Trump’s announcement that he could end the meeting at any time with a “Good luck” sounds less like sovereign negotiation and more like the threat of a petulant businessman who does not understand that geopolitics follows different rules than the real estate market.

The choice of Alaska as the meeting place is more than just logistics. It is symbolic that Putin is willing to travel to American soil – to a military base, no less. It signals on the one hand his self-confidence, but on the other also a certain negotiation pressure. The Russian economy is groaning under sanctions, losses at the front are enormous, and the dependence on North Korean mercenaries reveals the exhaustion of its own resources. Putin needs a deal, but he will only accept it on his terms.

Parallel to these diplomatic maneuvers, an invisible war is being waged in cyberspace. The revelation that Russian hackers have apparently penetrated the American federal court system for years and compromised highly sensitive documents casts a glaring light on Moscow’s hybrid warfare. That this security breach becomes public just before the summit is hardly a coincidence. It is a show of force, a reminder that Russia operates on many levels simultaneously and possesses leverage far beyond conventional military power.

The tragedy of this situation lies in its predictability. For years, experts have warned of an axis of authoritarian regimes uniting against the liberal world order. The alliance between Russia and North Korea, supported by China’s benevolent neutrality and Iran’s drone deliveries, is the manifestation of these warnings. It is a coalition of pariahs, united in their hostility to the West and their contempt for international norms. That Trump, of all people, who styles himself as a strongman, could become the potential enabler of this alliance is an irony of world-historic proportions.

Volodymyr Zelensky, the Ukrainian president, was conspicuously not invited to Alaska. This disinvitation speaks volumes about Trump’s understanding of negotiations: he apparently sees himself as a broker between two parties, not as an ally of the attacked nation. For Ukraine, this could have catastrophic consequences. A deal concluded over Kyiv’s head would not only cede Ukrainian territory, but also undermine the principle that borders must not be changed by force – a principle that has formed the basis of the European peace order since 1945.

The coming days will show whether Trump can resist the temptation to present himself as the great peacemaker at any cost. History teaches us that appeasement of aggressors rarely leads to lasting peace. A rotten compromise in Alaska would not appease Putin, but encourage him. It would send the signal that military aggression pays off, that alliance with rogue states bears fruit, and that the West is ultimately willing to sacrifice its principles for an illusory calm.

The responsibility resting on Trump’s shoulders could not be greater. In Alaska, it is not only the future of Ukraine that is being negotiated, but the credibility of the West, the stability of Europe and the question of whether the 21st century will be shaped by democracies or autocracies. The fact that this decision lies in the hands of a man who abhors complexity and loves quick deals is deeply disturbing. Europe can only hope that Trump in Alaska understands what is at stake – not just for Ukraine, but for the entire free world.

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