Trump wanted to walk out of the summit with agreement from Putin on a ceasefire – the same demand he has made of him since March.
But he didn’t get it. He says he got progress, but would not say what or how.
So, as the war’s architect, Putin got an effective American embrace, a red carpet welcome and presidential applause.
Trump, in return, got nothing to present as a tangible achievement. The summit, then, amounts to a clear win for Putin.
The Russian president also used the moment to warn the Europeans not to throw a “wrench” into his ties with Trump.
That was his attempt to sharpen divisions between the Trump administration and America’s European allies – something he has tried to leverage repeatedly under Trump.
But he went further still. In an extraordinary statement, he echoed Trump’s long-stated claim that the war would not have happened if Trump had been president (rather than his predecessor, Joe Biden).
Putin will know this taps directly into Trump’s false claim, that still resonates with much of his base, that the 2020 election was “stolen” from him.
In a few quick sentences Putin, on US soil, was using the stage provided him by Trump to exploit and deepen the divisions between the US and Europe – and those within America itself.