Fearing Western Unity, Russia Scrambled to Twist the White House Multilateral Summit

US President Donald Trump met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and seven other European leaders at the White House on August 18 to support Ukraine and the pursuit of lasting peace in Europe.

Trump pledged that the US would help guarantee Ukraine’s security in any future peace deal. The summit came after Trump and Russian leader Vladimir Putin met in Alaska on August 15, 2025. Russian officials, their state media, and propagandists used the meeting to revive a decades-long imperial fantasy—Alaska still belongs to them.

Russian propaganda’s double game

Since Trump’s Alaska meeting with Putin, Kremlin mouthpieces have been flooding the airwaves with claims that Trump bowed to Putin and dropped his own agenda. Moscow’s propagandist Alexander Gurnov called it a “string of victories for Putin.” Russian TV host Sergey Mardan went further, fantasizing about awarding Trump the “gold-star medal of ‘Hero of Russia,’” mocking Trump’s private limo ride with Putin in Alaska.

In the same breath, those same voices belittle Trump as a “mediator” for Putin, rather than Ukraine’s ally. Russian media push the idea that the White House summit was unsuccessful, with clashes and a “win” for Russia, only for Trump to pick up the phone and rush back to Putin.

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Between the Alaska meeting and the Washington summit, Russian papers claimed that Trump-Putin talks went well for Moscow, with Trump edging closer to the Kremlin’s line on Ukraine, BBC’s Steve Rosenberg reported.

They had thought Trump would strong-arm Zelenskyy into a deal and suggested that Europe would try to derail it. “The world is changing, returning from liberal gloom to reality, in which, Russia’s position is fact, real, and normal,” one paper boasted, Rosenberg said. 

The contradiction is the point: build Trump up when it makes Russia look powerful, tear him down when his actions make Russia look weak.

Moscow’s narrative vs. Washington’s reality

Coinciding with the Washington meeting between Zelenskyy, Trump, and the EU, Russian troops—seen as a symbolic taunt directed at Ukraine and its allies—drove a captured American M113 armoured personnel carrier while flying the Russian and US flags. 

After the meeting, Russian officials and propagandists started to mock Europe for “sucking up” to Trump—while simultaneously vying for Trump’s favor themselves. 

Dmitry Medvedev—Putin’s ally and Deputy Chair of Russia’s Security Council, whom Trump previously called “the failed former President of Russia, who thinks he’s still President”—took to X to sneer that EU leaders failed to “outplay” him. 

Russian channels tried to portray Europeans as lined up “like primary school students” under Trump’s command, spreading an AI-generated image of European leaders waiting to meet with Trump at the White House. Propagandists claimed the image was “utterly humiliating” and looked like they were “pushed outside in the waiting room”. 

Pro-Kremlin newspapers meanwhile, featured headlines like Zelenskyy’s dead end: Trump Clashes Hard with Merz… and Called Putin and We’ll Have to Go as Far as Lviv: In Washington, Europe Got What It Wanted.

What the leaders agreed on in Washington

The reality in Washington, meanwhile, looked nothing like the caricature Russian propaganda created. European leaders sat shoulder to shoulder with Trump and Zelenskyy in the Oval Office, speaking as equals. French President Emmanuel Macron stressed unity, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz underlined pressure on Russia, and Zelenskyy highlighted the first credible path toward peace and security guarantees. Trump himself touted the meeting as successful.

Zelenskyy emphasized that Ukraine and Russia—not any third party—must resolve the question of Ukrainian territory. He and Trump agreed to coordinate a comprehensive prisoner-of-war and civilian exchange, with special attention to retrieving Ukrainian children taken by Russia. 

Ukraine has proposed buying $100 billion in US weapons (backed by Europe) in exchange for robust security guarantees, alongside a proposed $50 billion drone co‑production venture leveraging Ukraine’s advanced unmanned systems. A face-to-face meeting between Zelenskyy and Putin is projected within two weeks.

NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte confirmed that a “coalition of the willing” of around 30 countries—including Japan and Australia—is already crafting a security framework for Ukraine.

“For the first time, I feel there is a real chance for peace—not just words, not just pauses, but a serious path forward,” Zelenskyy said, adding that real peace can be protected with security guarantees, calling the meeting with the leaders “the best of all our conversations.”

That’s why the Kremlin leans on humiliation: when the truth is friendly chats and joint commitments, propaganda has to twist it into submission and failure. By reducing allies to cartoons, Moscow hopes to erase the image of Western unity that Russians most fear.

Ukraine-Russia talks

When Trump called Putin in an effort to arrange a summit between him and Zelenskyy, the Kremlin downplayed the prospect of an imminent meeting between Ukraine and Russia.

Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that while Russia was allegedly “not refusing” bilateral or trilateral talks, “any contacts involving top leaders must be prepared very carefully,” citing unspecified “security concerns.”

While Zelenskyy and Western allies have highlighted the unity among Europe and see the talks as a chance to end the violence and bring home Ukraine’s stolen children, Russia’s propagandists attack with attempted humiliation, promoting Trump-Putin talks as an alliance that undermines Europe, the US, and Ukraine's sovereignty.