In August, Alaska was honored to host the peace negotiations between Presidents Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin. Beyond the positive images of world leaders shaking hands, very important negotiations were held between envoys Steve Witkoff and Russian Kirill Dmitriev, resulting in the 28-point proposed peace agreement to settle the Ukraine conflict with provisions very important to Alaska.

Although Alaska is 5,000 miles away from Ukraine, associated sanctions have had serious impacts on Alaska and other cooperating Arctic nations. How does the proposed settlement address them?

I have addressed them myself over the past two months as I have been invited to speak at several European based meetings including the NATO Geneva Center for Security Policy in Geneva, the Arctic Council Emergency Management conference in Bodo, Norway, and most recently, the Primakov National Research Institute in Moscow, Russia at their World Oceans international conference.

While the initial focus of these discussions was on marine safety on the Northern Sea Route, the discussions inevitably turned to the interrelated issue of sanctions against Russia and Europe’s centuries old continuous conflicts, carrying on today in the Ukraine proxy war.  

My invitations were due to my experience being the founding president of the Marine Exchange of Alaska, one of the world’s premier vessel tracking, monitoring and emergency response assist organizations, but also my membership in the Arctic Council and the Russian Rosatom Arctic Shipping Experts Working Groups.

It is also because Alaska is often positively seen as a ‘Switzerland of the Arctic” due to our long experience in cross border trade and diplomacy with Russia and all other Arctic and Asian nations. This view was clearly reflected in the choice of Alaska for the meetings between Presidents Trump and Putin, which resulted in the proposed Ukraine settlement.

As patriotic Alaskan Americans, we do not have our own foreign policy, but we do have our own viewpoint as Arctic people and we don’t hesitate to state our concerns when the interests of our people are at stake.

While we have always been concerned about safe shipping practices on the Northern Sea Route in ice covered waters, our concern has been highly elevated due the shipment of crude oil caused by European sanctions against the purchase of Russian oil and gas. In 2024, 128 million barrels of crude oil were diverted through the Bering Strait enroute to Asia, which along with natural gas, represented 84% of the cargo on the Northern Sea Route.

The graph below represents the shift of fossil fuels from Europe to Asia due to European import sanctions. At the same time, Europe’s economies have suffered due to a lack of energy which has accelerated political instability across Europe. Who couldn’t have seen that coming? You don’t mess with energy.

We can’t blame Russia for finding alternative markets. In Alaska, for instance, we would do the same if our U.S. markets were closed to Alaskan oil. Nor can we blame China or India for buying even more of it, especially at the bargain basement prices established by sanctions-imposed price caps. Sanctions banning insurance companies from providing oil spill coverage for these shipments have also added to our concerns.

Together, these represent the biggest threat to food security in the Arctic that we have ever seen. An oil spill in the Arctic would be devastating. While fish can swim away from toxic waters, marine mammals must surface to breathe and the death toll would be staggering. Under even the best of circumstances in ice free waters, the maximum oil spill recovery is 10%. In ice it would be even less.

All of these shipments are legal under freedom of navigation of the sea and international waterways such as the Bering Strait. We cannot oppose them on that basis. Even if Europe abandons their current sanctions, new shipping and contractual arrangements have been made with Asia, so we expect these shipments to continue indefinitely. What we can do is advocate for the strongest prevention measures possible.

In Alaska, we have organized the Marine Exchange of Alaska (MXAK.org) to provide comprehensive vessel tracking, 24/7/365 monitoring and assistance to emergency rescue operations. In addition, we are providing real time weather and other navigation safety information directly to vessels. Our coverage area in the Bering Sea is four million square kilometers. In the 25 years we have operated, we have had no major vessel casualties or oil spills. We would welcome a harmonized, cooperative effort to expand these prevention measures all across the Arctic.

In addition to the drastic consequences of European oil and gas import sanctions, there have been an additional 16,000 sanctions placed against Russia. Many of them have been very harmful to Alaska, including restrictions on fisheries research and management as fish stocks move further North, air flight and tourism restrictions, joint business opportunities which were substantial before sanctions, educational and cultural exchanges, Arctic Council and Arctic Economic Council cooperative activities, etc. It can also be argued that these sanctions have harmed Europe more than they have harmed Russia, since they also seem to have been almost entirely ineffective.

Of course, all these Alaskan and Arctic issues had nothing to do with the Ukraine conflict in the first place. While we probably won’t be able to have these sanctions against Arctic cooperation eliminated in advance, we can at least advocate for their immediate removal as part of a Ukraine conflict settlement. Unfortunately, President Volodymyr Zelensky wants them all to remain in effect until war crimes tribunals can be conducted. Eight years later, we are still conducting them over WWII. One of the provisions of the 28-point proposed settlement bans this approach.

Did it have to be this way and was it unprovoked? In 2008, CIA Director and former U.S. Ambassador to Russia William Burns clearly stated that Ukraine was a special case, and that trying to push them into NATO would cause a war, and he was right. Who didn’t listen to him? He knew this would be exactly like the U.S. response to the Cuban missile crisis when we came within inches of a nuclear war. At that time, State and Defense Departments were advising President John F. Kennedy to invade Cuba, not realizing, due to faulty intelligence reports, that at least two of the missile systems were completely armed and ready to be fired.

Thankfully, President Kennedy and his brother Robert F. Kennedy used emissaries, bypassing the State Department to defuse the situation. Apparently, this is what President Trump did in this case with emissaries Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner.

At least in this case, President Trump and his Department of Defense advisors came to the conclusion that Ukraine would continue to lose land in a protracted conflict, even more than is currently in the proposed settlement, perhaps even the loss of Odessa, which would crush Ukraine economically. This is not ‘capitulation’ or ‘appeasement’, as claimed by Europe, but is military and situational realism that would be confirmed by any competent military analyst.

How could Europe have veered so far off course?  The answer lies in two thousand years of conflict across Europe where empires, countries and people have repeatedly learned to fear and hate each other.  Look up ‘list of conflicts in Europe’ on Wikipedia and you will see 947 of them. One hundred years wars, 80 years wars, the more recent German Nazi invasions, Napoleon, deep religious wars, etc. The 100 years war being finally settled at last when the Burgundy French turned Joan of Arc over to Britain, where the Church of England found her to be a heretic for wearing men’s clothes and speaking to demons, for which they burned her at the stake. A quaint relic of European conflict resolution that everyone remembers.

The point is that these conflicts have become so inbred that they reach the sociological definition of ‘sedimentation’, that is, so deeply seated that they are socially almost genetic. It can be the only explanation for irrational European delusional statements such as ‘Ukraine will defeat Russia’, reclaiming Crimea, which is never going to happen, and making Orwellian statements like the Danish prime minister claiming that “Peace in Ukraine is worse than war.” 

In the meantime, Europe continues to speak of continuing to finance the proxy war ‘for as long as it takes’ which means until the last Ukrainian is dead? And this even though it appears these finances are going to corruption, this endemic corruption being why Europe won’t even allow Ukraine to join the EU. This tells you something and may even raise concern about the $187 billion the U.S. has already given to Ukraine.

It didn’t have to be this way. There was a strategic logic to confronting Russia during their ideological promotion of Communism, but when communism completely collapsed in Russia during the early 90’s, this justification evaporated. Germany was reunited, the Warsaw Pact was dissolved, and thousands of Western companies were welcomed into Russia including many Alaskan companies who brought their profits back to Alaska. 

A major opportunity to establish an integrated Europe, which was being proposed by Russian leaders at the time, was completely ignored by European leaders who continued the Cold War and pushed for NATO expansion. An impoverished post-communist Russia posed no realistic threat to Europe, but it seems that the Europeans were more concerned that if they didn’t keep presenting Russia as an enemy, there would be no reason for NATO to exist. Political leaders used a fearful ‘common enemy’ to maintain social cohesion and their own political power. Our own sedimentary condition is the continuation of the Cold War and the characterization of Russia as the ‘Evil Empire.’ We will have to shake this outlook.

However, with communism behind them, Russia rebuilt and established new world alliances, including BRICS, and is now a world power that cannot be ignored.

A new opportunity for a stable pan European Security Architecture exists today as an outgrowth of the Ukraine settlement, including resumption of business and trade relations with Russia as contained in the proposed agreement. In Alaska, we saw this approach work in real time as we took the lead in melting the ‘Ice Curtain’, promoting business, cultural and tourism exchanges, even during the period of the USSR, which showed the people on both sides our many common interests and mutual desire for peace.

Beyond the NATO issue, there are other important provisions of the proposed settlement that provide context to the beginnings of the war, such as the seemingly simple proposed provision that “Russia and Ukraine will abolish all discriminatory measures and guarantee the rights of Ukrainian and Russian media and education”. Why would this even need to be stated?

In fact, this provision is important to illuminate one of the major reasons for the war, when Zelensky tried to ‘deRussify’ Ukraine and Crimea, forbidding the teaching of Russian language in schools, renaming streets and the names of towns, forbidding the showing of Russian films, and finally attacking the Russian Orthodox Church. Along with the NATO related provisions, the inclusion of this provision is important to clarify the incessant false claims of the ‘unprovoked’ nature of the war. Amazingly, even within the past couple of days, Zelensky has defended these actions and his intention to continue it.

When local Eastern Ukrainian Russians rose up against this cultural ethnic cleansing, Zelensky made the further mistake of sending in the openly Nazi Azov Brigade (look them up) to attack them, allowing Russia to characterize the war as a ‘denazification’ operation.

While I am sure most Ukrainians are not Nazis, it also didn’t help when during World War II, many Ukrainians fought on the side of the NAZI German SS and operated their holocaust operations against the jews there. My father, who fought in the Battle of the Bulge, told me of this, and at first, I found it hard to believe. But when I looked it up, it turns out to be true.

Another proposed provision of the settlement is the requirement for a Ukrainian election within 100 days. It is hard to say we are fighting for ‘freedom and democracy’ when Zelensky has cancelled all elections, outlawed any opposition parties, put his political rivals in jail, and seized control of all media in the country.

An additional provision in the proposed settlement, which goes beyond the Ukraine specific issues, is the reference to resuming the START (Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty) negotiations. Historically, these were initiated by the resolution of the similar Cuban missile crisis. An isolated Russia has continued to create new weapons such as the hypersonic Oreshnik, Zircon and Bereshnik missiles and the particularly concerning nuclear powered and armed Poseidon torpedo, all of which there currently is no defense for. Rather than further escalations, these START negotiations should begin immediately since their standing provisions expire in January.

I know a lot of this sounds negative, but I am more hopeful now than I have been in some time, since we finally have President Trump who is talking about peace, and the horrible impact these conflicts and sanctions are having on the people of the world.

My father often told me, “Son, don’t just come to me to complain about a problem, give me a solution”. While I am in no position of authority to propose anything, and in the grand scheme of things I am just a little country boy from Alaska, I am suggesting that Switzerland should be engaged to provide guidance to Ukraine on how to be a successful, non aligned country. They are an excellent example. In addition, their extensive experience in detecting and defeating money laundering schemes will be useful in addressing the massive corruption in Ukraine. This can be administratively accomplished through the existing NATO ‘Partnership for Peace’ program of which Switzerland, Ukraine, and Russia are all members.

For Alaska, our most important current effort should be to propose an immediate resumption of our transarctic cooperation as part of any negotiated Ukraine settlement. We had nothing to do with the war in the first place and there is no reason to continue holding us hostage as collateral damage any longer. 

As Alaskans, we should stand behind President Trump’s quest for peace, both for the world and especially for Alaska.

Paul Fuhs is the Goodwill Ambassador for the Northern Forum where he served as founding secretary/treasurer for Governor Wally Hickel in 1991, and also serves on the Arctic Shipping Experts Working Groups of the Arctic Council and Northern Sea Route Administration Rosatom. He is also the founding president of the Marine Exchange of Alaska.