Does the Alaska Summit Signal a New Detente Between Russia and the US, With Huge Implications For Global Energy?

In February 2025, senior US and Russian officials met in Saudi Arabia to discuss what was unthinkable during the previous US administration: normalisation of relations, economic cooperation and a potential roadmap to end the Ukraine war. That improbable dialogue set the stage for the historic US–Russia summit last week in Anchorage, Alaska, where President Trump welcomed President Putin with the red-carpet treatment. Whatever one thinks of Trump’s mercurial style, the Anchorage meeting may yet prove to be a geopolitical turning point, reshaping not only the outlook for NATO’s proxy war in Ukraine but also the architecture of global energy.

For the first time in many years, the prospect of Washington and Moscow resuming normal diplomatic and economic relations is within reach. And with it comes the tantalising possibility of an energy renaissance: a world no longer constrained by anti-Russia sanctions or by the West’s ideological war on fossil fuels.

From Strident Rhetoric to Realpolitik

Until Anchorage, the chorus from Brussels and Kyiv was uncompromising. European leaders and President Volodymyr Zelenskyy demanded that Russia return to 1991 borders, pay reparations and grant NATO membership to Ukraine. But as Russian advances on the battlefront eroded the Ukrainian military’s morale and capacity – Ukrainian public support for the war effort has collapsed, according to a widely cited Gallup poll – those maximalist demands are delusional.

Trump, ever the dealmaker, quickly shifted the conversation and put paid to the incessant calls from the EU and Ukraine for an immediate, unconditional ceasefire by Russia. The Anchorage summit shifted the narrative, replacing “immediate ceasefire” with “peace deal” as the key next step. A signal achievement by President Putin was aligning the US with Moscow’s demand of “agreement before ceasefire”, rather than Zelenskyy’s and Europe’s rival demand of “ceasefire before agreement”. No longer was the debate about impossible ultimatums and Ukraine’s NATO membership demands. Instead, it moved towards territorial concessions, security guarantees and a pragmatic peace settlement.

The result is not capitulation but realism, dictated by battlefield facts and geopolitical necessity. Intent on subverting a potential US–Russia rapprochement, the EU is now calling for placing NATO “peace-keeping troops” in Western Ukraine as part of a future Ukraine–Russia deal. This EU call was quickly followed by a categorical “nyet” from Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergei Lavrov. He called the placement of NATO troops in Ukraine a “direct act of war”.

What truly matters is not Europe’s rhetorical posturing but the opportunity a US–Russia rapprochement potentially unlocks. Together, the two countries represent the world’s first- and third-largest oil producers and the top two natural gas producers. Normalised relations would re-open Russia’s vast natural resources to Western capital and technology. Already, Moscow recently invited ExxonMobil back into the Sakhalin-1 project after years of estrangement.

Beyond oil and gas, Russian mineral resources are another underdeveloped sector that could see a boom if opened to Western investment. In such a world, the winners are not only American and Russian producers but also billions of consumers across Asia, Africa and Latin America.

For global markets, the implications are seismic. Sanctions artificially constrained supply and raised costs. Removing them would expand investment, increase output and lower prices across the board. At a time when artificial intelligence is driving unprecedented electricity demand for data centres, access to cheap, reliable energy is not optional but existential.

Hedging in a Multipolar World

Will Moscow abandon Beijing in a variant of the “Nixon-goes-to-China” manoeuvre? That is not likely. Russia has every reason to maintain its close partnership with China, forged during years of confrontation with the West. But it also has strong incentives to hedge. By restoring relations with Washington while retaining ties with Beijing and the BRICS countries, Russia straddles both worlds: a key commodity supplier to China and the Global South, and a partner for Western investment.

The logic of multipolarity – touched on by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio in an interview with former Fox News host Megyn Kelly – is already visible. During the Biden years, Western elites described Russia as the “proximate enemy” to be neutralised before the longer term strategic contest with China. NATO strategists even floated the idea of extending the alliance into the Indo-Pacific. But by engaging Trump, Putin ensures Russia will not be reduced to Beijing’s junior partner.

For China, the shift is double-edged. A sanctions-free Russia with ExxonMobil and Chevron back in play dilutes its leverage. Yet lower global energy prices will also benefit its industrial base. In zero-sum terms, Beijing loses exclusivity in its relations with Russia. But a world with cheaper energy and mineral supply significantly benefits the Chinese economy.

What of OPEC? On the surface, an energised Russian sector might seem to undermine cartel discipline. Yet Moscow is already embedded in the OPEC+ quota systems. A freer Russia would not destroy OPEC but enhance its reach, especially if the world embraces fossil fuels anew.

President Trump’s second term has ruptured the hitherto Western “consensus view” of climate change. There is no better indicator of this rupture than the recent US Department of Energy report authored by five eminent scientists entitled ‘A Critical Review of Impacts of Greenhouse Gas Emissions on the US Climate’ which distances itself from the alarmist prognostications of the UN’s IPCC.

With President Trump’s counter-revolution in energy and climate policies, a convergence of views between the US and Russia on energy and environmental issues would be liberating for many developing countries seeking to exploit their own fossil fuel and mineral resources. The greatest threat to OPEC and the Global South has never been supply abundance but artificial scarcity imposed by Western climate orthodoxy.

Europe’s ‘Net Zero’ agenda, enshrined in the Paris Agreement and promoted through multilateral agencies such as the IMF, World Bank and IEA, has constrained development finance, forcing poor countries to adopt unreliable renewables while denying them affordable fuels. If the Anchorage meeting heralds a counter-revolution – one that legitimises hydrocarbons as engines of prosperity – OPEC and developing nations alike will thrive.

Europe’s Self-Marginalisation

Against this backdrop, Europe appears to be committed to ever increasing irrelevance. Germany, the motive force of the EU economy, is now synonymous with de-industrialisation. Its energy-hungry industries have been hobbled by soaring costs and leading conglomerates such as BASF and Siemens redirect investments abroad. The IMF notes that German business licenses can take more than 120 days to process – double the OECD average.

Across the EU, the story is similar. Productivity stagnates, economic growth is anaemic at best and political elites double down on ‘Net Zero’ virtue. Mario Draghi calls for a “Copernican revolution” in EU economics, urging investment and reform. Yet Brussels continues to lecture the world on climate while its factories close and its voters turn to populist-conservative parties.

The humiliation of Western Europe’s leaders in Washington – lined up in Trump’s Oval Office like errant schoolchildren – was not a mere diplomatic embarrassment. It was the predictable outcome of policy choices that prioritise carbon targets over industrial competitiveness, mass immigration over cultural cohesiveness and war over peace. While Presidents Trump and Putin prepare for a potential rapprochement and a new energy order, the EU obsesses over wind turbines and carbon credits in domestic policy, and over alleged Russian revanchism in international affairs.

A Renaissance for the Global South

The greatest beneficiaries of a Trump-Putin thaw will be the Global South. For the past decade or so, developing nations were increasingly advised that fossil fuel use was to be discouraged. They were pressured to “leapfrog” directly to solar and wind, even as Western economies had industrialised on coal, oil and gas. International development financing was restricted to “green” projects.

History, however, is clear. No nation has ever industrialised on renewables. Britain first ascended the energy ladder on coal, America on oil, China on coal and gas. To demand that Nigeria or India develop differently is hypocrisy, a form of carbon colonialism.

By normalising Russia’s role in energy markets, Trump’s rapprochement would expand supply, reduce costs and remove the stigma attached to hydrocarbons. This would liberate developing nations to pursue growth on their own terms. Africa’s power-hungry economies, South Asia’s manufacturing hubs and Latin America’s resource producers all stand to gain. For billions, the Anchorage meeting could mark the beginning of emancipation from energy poverty.

Conclusion: Toward Energy Realism

If “Biden’s war” gets owned by Trump, then the future of international relations looks bleak, as the two leading nuclear-armed countries will continue to risk dangerous confrontation. But Anchorage may prove to be more than a handshake. It is a potential hinge of history. If Trump and Putin follow through, the consequences will reverberate across every continent.

For the United States, it opens Russian natural resource reserves to American capital and enterprise. For Russia, it means liberation from sanctions and restored global standing. For China, it reduces leverage but lowers costs too. For OPEC, it signals a world that no longer vilifies hydrocarbons. For the Global South, it promises affordable energy and genuine development.

The EU, the UK and other allies in the globalist climate movement such as Canada and Australia, tragically, have chosen another path – climate dogma, deindustrialisation, cultural vacuity amidst mass migration and marginalisation on the world stage. These countries are free to persist but will do so as geopolitically irrelevant spectators.

This article was first published in The Daily Sceptic https://dailysceptic.org/2025/08/26/after-the-alaska-summit-global-energy-affairs-in-a-trump-putin-rapprochement/