"So when we've met, when I came out of the plane and I said, 'Good afternoon, dear neighbor. Very good to see you in good health and to see you alive.' I think that is very neighborly."

"I think that's some kind words that we can say to each other. We're separated by the strait of Bering, though, there are two islands only between the Russian Island and the U.S. Island. They're only four kilometers apart. We are close neighbors, and it's a fact."

Said Vladimir Putin, quoted in "Here's the transcript of what Putin and Trump said in Alaska." 

I pulled that quote because it's very near the beginning and because it reminds me of "I can see Russia from my house and because "to see you alive" might be what he'd say if he had been behind the 2 assassination attempts.

But I want to read it all. I'm going to live-blog my reading of the transcript here. Sorry I missed the live event last night, but at the last second we realized we could get access to the baseball game by submitting to the plot to force us to subscribe to Apple TV. The home team extended its winning streak to 13. We're joking please, please it's too much winning, we can't take it anymore.

On to the transcript. Putin continues:

It's also important that Alaska has to do with our common heritage, common history between Russia and the U.S., and many positive events have to do with that territory. Still, there is tremendous cultural heritage, back from the Russian America, for example, Orthodox churches, and a lot of- more than 700 geographical names of Russian origin.

I don't remember ever seeing the term "Russian America," but it is a standard term referring to the Russian colonization of America, which lasted from 1732 to 1867. Read about it in Wikipedia, here. The Russians were into fur trade and the Russification of Alaska Natives. The Tlingit fought to expel the Russians in the Battle of Sitka:

But Putin doesn't mention how Russia lost Alaska. Maybe he still thinks of it as rightfully belonging to Russia. Look at the map. Geographically, it may look like manifest destiny from his point of view. Trump visualizes Canada (and Greenland) as somehow, in the future, uniting with us. Why wouldn't Putin think the same about Alaska? 

But Putin doesn't recount any such dream. He jumps ahead to the 20th century:

During the Second World War, it was here in Alaska that was the origin of the legendary air bridge for the supply of military aircraft and other equipment under the Lend-Lease Program.

We were friends, not long ago.

It was a dangerous and treacherous route over the vast emptiness of ice. However, the pilots of both countries did everything to bring closer the victory. They risked their lives and they gave it all for the common victory. I was just in the city of Magadan in Russia. And there is a memorial there dedicated to the Russian, the U.S. pilots. And there are two flags, the U.S. flag and the Russian flag. And I know that here as well, there is such a memorial. There is a military burial place several kilometers away from here. The Soviet pilots are buried there who died during that dangerous mission. We're thankful to the citizens and the government of the U.S. for carefully taking care of their memory. I think that's very worthy and noble. We'll always remember other historical examples when our countries defeated common enemies together in the spirit of battle camaraderie and allyship that supported each other and facilitated each other. I am sure that this heritage will help us rebuild and foster mutually beneficial and equal ties at this new stage, even during the hardest conditions.

Beautifully articulated basis for friendship. We love flags and monuments. We venerate the war dead. The idea of a foundation for building may have been chosen precisely to appeal to Trump, the builder. 

It is known that there have been no summits between Russia and the U.S. for four years, and that's a long time. This time was very hard for bilateral relations, and let's be frank, they've fallen to the lowest point since the Cold War. I think that's not benefiting our countries and the world as a whole. It is apparent that sooner or later, we have to amend the situation to move on from the confrontation to dialog, and in this case, a personal meeting between the heads of state has been long overdue, naturally, under the condition of serious and painstaking work, and this work has been done.

In general, me and President Trump have very good direct contact.

He was speaking Russian so I don't know why the translation has a grammar error.  

We've spoken multiple times. We spoke frankly on the phone. And the special envoy of the president, Mr. Witkoff, traveled out to Russia several times. Our advisers and heads of foreign ministries kept in touch all the time, and we know fully well that one of the central issues was the situation around Ukraine.

We see the strive [sic] of the administration and President Trump personally to help facilitate the resolution of the Ukrainian conflict, and his strive to get to the crux of the matter, to understand this history, is precious. As I've said, the situation in Ukraine has to do with fundamental threats to our security. Moreover, we've always considered the Ukrainian nation, and I've said it multiple times, a brotherly nation. How strange it may sound in these conditions. We have the same roots, and everything that's happening is a tragedy for us, and terrible wound. Therefore, the country is sincerely interested in putting an end to it.

At the same time, we're convinced that in order to, to make the settlement lasting and long term, we need to eliminate all the primary roots, the primary causes of that conflict, and we've said it multiple times, to consider all legitimate concerns of Russia and to reinstate a just balance of security in Europe and in the world on the whole, and agree with President Trump, as he has said today, that naturally, the security of Ukraine should be ensured as well. Naturally, we are prepared to work on that.

I would like to hope that the agreement that we've reached together will help us bring closer that goal and will pave the path towards peace in Ukraine. We expect that Kyiv and European capitals will perceive that constructively and that they won't throw a wrench in the works.

I wonder how you say "throw a wrench in the works" in Russian. ChatGPT tells me he said "«ставить палки в колёса» which translates literally to “place sticks in the wheels.” I'm told that's a common expression in Russian.

They will not make any attempts to use some backroom dealings to conduct provocations to torpedo the nascent progress. Incidentally, when the new administration came to power, bilateral trade started to grow. It's still very symbolic. Still, we have a growth of 20%. As I've said, we have a lot of dimensions for joint work. It is clear that the U.S. and Russian investment and business cooperation has tremendous potential. Russia and the U.S. can offer each other so much in trade, digital, high tech and in space exploration. We see that arctic cooperation is also very possible, in our international context. For example, between the far east of Russia and the West Coast of the U.S.

That sounds as though he's passing along Trump's ideas: We can do so well together in commercial trade. Pure Trumpism. Abandon what is bad because you are attracted to the good — the good of wealth and the beautiful things that we can build together. 

Overall, it's very important for our countries to turn the page to go back to cooperation. It is symbolic that, not far away from here, the border between Russia and the US, there was a so-called International Date Line. I think you can step over, literally, from yesterday into tomorrow, and I hope that's- will succeed in that, in the political sphere.

Nice metaphor. 

I would like to thank President Trump for our joint work, for the well wishing and trustworthy tone of our conversation. It's important that both sides are result-oriented and we see that the president of the U.S. has a very clear idea of what he would like to achieve. He sincerely cares about the prosperity of his nation. Still, he understands that Russia has its own national interests.

Prosperity for all. Why is it not possible? 

I expect that today's agreements will be the starting point, not only for the solution of the Ukrainian issue, but also will help us bring back business-like and pragmatic relations between Russia and the U.S.

"Today's agreements" — he said "agreements," but the news reports I'm seeing say there were no agreements. Or is this the agreement, stated by Trump today on Truth Social: "It was determined by all that the best way to end the horrific war between Russia and Ukraine is to go directly to a Peace Agreement, which would end the war, and not a mere Ceasefire Agreement, which often times do not hold up." 

Back to Putin:

And in the end, I would like to add one more thing. I'd like to remind you that in 2022, during the last contact with the previous administration, I tried to convince my previous American colleague, it should not- the situation should not be brought to the point of no return, when it would come to hostilities and accept it quite directly back then, that is a big mistake. Today, when President Trump is saying that if he was the president back then, there would be no war, and I'm quite sure that it would indeed be so. I can confirm that.

I assume Trump pushed him to say that and to say it very clearly. Putin agrees with Trump's assertion — made many times — that if he had been in office, the war in Ukraine would never have happened. If that is a lie, what does it cost Putin to tell that lie? Why not puff up Trump, if that's what he's doing? In this context, it serves Putin's interests to give Trump that. I'm sure Trump knows it.

I think that overall, me and President Trump [sic] have built a very good business-like and trustworthy contact, and have every reason to believe that moving down this path, we can come and assume it better to the end of the conflict in Ukraine. Thank you. Thank you.

Businesslike. That suits Trump, I think. 

Now, we hear from Trump:

Thank you very much, Mr. President, that was very profound, and I will say that I believe we had a very productive meeting. There were many, many points that we agreed on, most of them, I would say, a couple of big ones that we haven't quite gotten there, but we've made some headway. So there's no deal until there's a deal.

Does he agree that there were "agreements"? In a way he does not. He says there were "points" that were agreed on, but these are terms that would be part of the agreement that is sought, and you need agreement on all the essential terms. That is: there's no deal until there's a deal. That's businesslike.

I will call up NATO in a little while, I will call up the various people that I think are appropriate, and I'll of course, call up President Zelenskyy and tell him about today's meeting. It's ultimately up to them. They're going to have to agree with what Marco and Steve and some of the great people from the Trump administration who've come here, Scott and John Ratcliffe. Thank you very much. But we have some of our really great leaders. They've been doing a phenomenal job.

We also have some tremendous Russian business representatives here.

Business! 

And I think, you know, everybody wants to deal with us. We've become the hottest country anywhere in the world in a very short period of time, and we look forward to that. We look forward to dealing- we're going to try and get this over with.

Come on everybody: Let's do deals. Business deals. Step over that line from yesterday to tomorrow and see that we all want deals and we can all get rich. And hot.

We really made some great progress today. I've always had a fantastic relationship with President Putin, with Vladimir. We had many, many tough meetings, good meetings. We were interfered with by the Russia, Russia, Russia hoax. It made it a little bit tougher to deal with, but he understood it. I think he's probably seen things like that during the course of his career. He's seen- he's seen it all. But we had to put up with the Russia, Russia, Russia hoax. He knew it was a hoax, and I knew it was a hoax, but what was done was very criminal, but it made it harder for us to deal as a country, in terms of the business, and all of the things that would like to have dealt with, but we'll have a good chance when this is over.

Oh! He brought up the Russia hoax. It fits the context: Things to get out of the way so we can move fully into the project that is, if not the meaning of it all, the best mechanism for peace: Getting rich. ("PEACE is the natural effect of trade. Two nations who traffic with each other become reciprocally dependent" — wrote Montesquieu.)

So just to put it very quickly, I'm going to start making a few phone calls and tell them what happened. But we had an extremely productive meeting, and many points were agreed to.

There are those points of agreement again. 

There are just a very few that are left. Some are not that significant. One is probably the most significant, but we have a very good chance of getting there. We didn't get there, but we have a very good chance of getting there.

He doesn't say want that one most significant point is.  

I would like to thank President Putin and his entire team, whose faces who I know, in many cases, otherwise, other than that, whose- whose faces I get to see all the time in the newspapers, you're very- you're almost as famous as the boss, but especially this one right over here.

But we had some good meetings over the years, right? Good, productive meetings over the years, and we hope to have that in the future. Let's do the most productive one right now. We're going to stop, really, 5, 6, 7 thousand, 1000s of people a week from being killed, and President Putin wants to see that as much as I do. So again, Mr. President, I'd like to thank you very much, and we'll speak to you very soon, and probably see you again very soon. Thank you very much, Vladimir.

PUTIN: Next time in Moscow.

TRUMP: Ooh, that's an interesting one. I don't know. I'll get a little heat on that one, but I could see it possibly happening.

Nixon in China... Trump in Russia. 

Thank you very much, Vladimir, and thank you all. Thank you. Thank you.

PUTIN: Thank you so much.