Russian President Vladimir Putin is said to have made a 'brutal comment' to an American journalist just before a peace meeting with Donald Trump. The 72-year-old traveled from Moscow to Anchorage and sat next to his American counterpart in front of reporters on Friday (August 15) before they began secret negotiations.
But he was soon bombarded with questions related to the war in Ukraine.
Mr. Putin, will you agree to a ceasefire? one of the reporters asked. Will you promise not to kill civilians anymore? Why would President Trump take your word for it now?
Sky News footage shows the moment Putin cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted at the crowd. Lip reader Nicola Hickling confirmed to The Sun that Putin directed the words at the journalist:"You're stupid."
She also noticed Trump indicating to his aide that he was feeling uncomfortable.
But Sky News correspondent Martha Kelner believed that Putin was actually saying: Let's go, let's go, and thereby trying to encourage the journalists to leave the room.
When the two leaders were last escorted to a private meeting room, they were said to have made significant progress in seeking peace between Russia and Ukraine.
Zelensky informed by phone
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was informed of this by phone and is now scheduled to visit the White House tomorrow (August 18).
Before the negotiations, he wrote on the X network: It is crucial that this meeting opens the right path to a just peace and a real discussion in a trilateral format – Ukraine, the United States and Russia. It is time for the war to end, and Russia must take the necessary steps. We are counting on America. We are, as always, ready to work as productively as possible.
In the days following the meeting — the first face-to-face since 2018 — it emerged that eight sensitive pages related to the event had simply been left on a public printer at the Captain Cook Hotel, just 20 minutes from Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson. The documents reportedly included a schedule, several government employee phone numbers, and a lunch menu. Photos show they were marked as having been produced by the Office of the Chief of Protocol.
The documents also said Trump had planned to give Putin a statue of a bald eagle. The lunch, which was ultimately canceled, was to have included a green salad, filet mignon, a halibut Olympia dish and a crème brûlée dessert.
Jon Michaels, a professor of national security at UCLA, called it a major mistake: This is yet another example of the administration's superficiality and incompetence. You don't leave documents on the printer. It's as simple as that.
As expected, the White House was quick to stress that it was not a security breach. The State Department's principal deputy spokesman, Tommy Pigott , told the Independent:"Instead of reporting on the historic steps towards peace achieved at Friday's summit, NPR is focusing on the lunch menu. Ridiculous, reports ladbible.com.
