Donald Trump flew back to Washington late Friday and walked into political fire after meeting Putin in Alaska for over three hours—his first sit-down with the Russian president since Moscow’s full invasion of Ukraine in 2022. The US president, who had warned of “severe consequences” if Putin refused to commit to peace, came back offering no penalties, no ceasefire, and no clear outcomes. According to the Financial Times, Trump instead praised the “fantastic relationship” he shares with the Russian leader, who remains wanted by the International Criminal Court for war crimes. The timing of the summit triggered immediate backlash on Capitol Hill. The war in Ukraine is still active, yet Trump appeared on camera grinning and chauffeuring Putin around in a private car. What made it worse for lawmakers wasn’t just the friendly optics—it was that Trump ended the meeting by saying he’d agreed with Putin on “many, many points” but also emphasized that “there’s no deal until there’s a deal.” His refusal to impose new sanctions or consequences rattled both parties and drew criticism even from typically loyal conservatives. Trump ignores pressure to hit Russia harder Republican Senator Lindsey Graham said that although the meeting was necessary, the best outcome now would be a ceasefire “well before Christmas.” He didn’t sound convinced that Trump had moved the needle. Conservative commentator Bill O’Reilly was more direct. He said there were no “concrete gains” from the summit and that Trump needed to “step up economic pressure.” For O’Reilly, Trump was running out of time to show results. Democratic Senator Jack Reed, who leads the Armed Services Committee, criticized the optics of the meeting. Reed said he didn’t like the “applause” Putin received and called the post-summit press conference “unorthodox” and lacking any useful detail. He backed diplomacy, but added that “peacemaking must be done responsibly,” suggesting Trump had failed to approach the summit with that mindset. Despite the criticism, Trump went on Fox News and confirmed he had no plans to follow through on additional penalties. He called the meeting a success, saying it went “very well,” and defended the lack of action by pointing to ongoing talks. But while Trump focused on conversation, reports surfaced that Russia was continuing to work around American sanctions, this time through crypto. Russia uses crypto to dodge financial crackdown While Trump was shaking hands, new details came out showing how Russia has built a parallel crypto economy since 2022 to avoid global restrictions. Research from Chainalysis showed the rise of a little-known ruble-backed token called A7A5 , which had processed more than $51.1 billion in transactions by the end of July. It was being traded mostly on smaller exchanges tied to Russian entities, many of which had already been sanctioned. One of the biggest platforms, Garantex, was hit with US sanctions in 2022. In response, the same group behind it launched Grinex in 2024 to keep the system alive. This week, the US Treasury sanctioned both Grinex and the issuer of A7A5, a Kyrgyzstan-based outfit named Old Vector, which is backed by Russia’s state-owned Promsvyazbank. What stood out about A7A5 was its weekday-only trading behavior. Activity would drop off over weekends, which analysts interpreted as proof it was being used primarily by businesses. Chainalysis pointed out that the token lined up with Russia’s push for legal crypto mining and cross-border payments. The report called this a “deliberate effort” to build a new financial system beyond US control. The data also showed that the Russian government had quietly enabled policies to let these systems grow. Instead of waiting on central banks or dollar approvals, businesses were now sending money through chains tied directly to institutions already under sanctions. “Backed by sanctioned Russian institutions, A7A5 is providing a new, crypto-native avenue to bypass the ever tightening sanctions against Russia,” Chainalysis said. They added that it remained to be seen whether A7A5 would eventually reach retail users. Want your project in front of crypto’s top minds? Feature it in our next industry report, where data meets impact.
