A new catchphrase has emerged in Russian statements surrounding the latest round of peace talks in Abu Dhabi: the “Anchorage Formula.”
“The territorial issue, which is part of the Anchorage Formula, is of course of particular importance to the Russian side,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Monday, adding that “negotiators will continue to defend our position.”
In comments two days earlier, Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov also recalled the bilateral summit in Alaska last August and said Russia was seeking a peace agreement “fully consistent with the basic understanding reached by the presidents of Russia and the United States during their talks in Anchorage.”
The problem, however, is that the highly publicized summit failed to yield any concrete “understanding.” Until now, there has been no talk of the “Anchorage Formula.” “There’s no deal until there’s a deal,” President Donald Trump declared while standing alongside President Vladimir Putin emerging from a meeting in Anchorage in August.
Indeed, the summit initially appeared to backfire on Russia, with President Trump growing frustrated with Russia’s intransigence. Less than a week later, he posted what appeared to be arguments supporting Ukraine attacking Russian targets on Truth Social. “It is very difficult, if not impossible, to win a war without attacking the aggressor’s country,” he wrote.
Later that fall, it was revealed that President Trump had stepped up intelligence sharing with Ukraine to target Russian energy facilities. Finally, in late October, when plans for another bilateral summit were shelved (again, because the Kremlin seemed unwilling to compromise), the White House imposed sanctions on Russia’s largest oil giants, Lukoil and Rosneft. This is a measure that even the Biden administration has hesitated to take.
Talk of Alaska began to resurface after the publication in November of the 28-point peace plan, a document containing many of Moscow’s extremist demands. As U.S.-Ukrainian talks to revise the plan get underway, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov warned that any amended agreement must reflect “the spirit and letter of Anchorage.”
By repeatedly referring to this non-existent framework, Russia is attempting to “take advantage of the ambiguity surrounding the outcome of the August 2025 U.S.-Russia Alaska summit to present the agreement in a way that favors Russia, including by claiming that the summit resulted in a joint understanding and agreement between the U.S. and Russia to end the war in Ukraine, and by obscuring Russia’s own efforts to sabotage the peace process,” analysts at the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War wrote. Think Tank, in a Saturday post. In other words, if Russia can convince its people that a deal has taken place in Alaska, it will make Russia less stubborn and lend credence to its claims that Ukraine is standing in the way of peace.
“They are literally constructing reality on the fly, Orwellian,” wrote Ukrainian war correspondent Ilya Ponomarenko in X, “thinking that the average consumer of Russian mass propaganda has the attention span of a guppy.” It is noteworthy that less than a month ago, Moscow accused Ukraine, without evidence, of attacking one of President Putin’s residences, just as negotiations between the United States and Ukraine seemed to be making progress again. The CIA later assessed that the attack never occurred.
Asked by a reporter on Friday whether the “Anchorage Formula” implied Russian domination of all of Donbas, Peskov’s answer was clear. “We do not intend to publicly delve into the details of the provisions being discussed. We cannot and will not discuss the exact nature of the ‘Anchorage Formula.’ That would be unrealistic.”
White House officials appeared to suggest over the weekend that Russia’s position behind the scenes in the negotiations was not as unyielding as it was in public. “They typically make extremist demands and then allow civilian negotiating teams to work flexibly,” one official said. Asked what exactly Russia meant by the “Anchorage Formula” and whether it existed, White House press secretary Anna Kelly said, “We’ll have to ask them.”
It is difficult to tell from Moscow’s actions whether the fictitious “official” is the result of confidence or desperation. After almost four years of all-out war, only about 20% of Ukrainian territory has been occupied (up from 7% before 2022), with nearly 1.5 million dead or injured, according to recent estimates from the British Ministry of Defense and the Institute for War Studies. Last week, NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte estimated that 30,000 Russians were killed in Ukraine in December alone. President Trump’s promise to end the war within 24 hours is now a distant memory.
Recent weeks may have also tested the Kremlin’s hopes that simply buying time will eventually lead to Ukraine capitulating, either through a Russian attack or under pressure from the White House. President Trump’s January seizure of power significantly undermined Moscow’s interests, including an increased crackdown on the Shadow Fleet, the loss of a key Latin American ally with the detention of Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro, and the prospect of a U.S. oil blockade, this time against another ally, Cuba.
Still, President Trump’s team visited Moscow again last week, providing all the perks and photo ops necessary to burnish the superpower image that Putin so covets.
So whatever the motive, Russia’s desire to remind people of the red carpet treatment Putin received in Alaska makes one thing clear. That is, US involvement remains a powerful propaganda tool.
CNN’s Kit Maher contributed to this report.
