Joe Parkinson

And I think because he spoke both Wyckoff and the Trump administration's language of business in a way that other Putin officials didn't,

he was able to lay out a buffet of options for how Russia's energy might begin to flow back into Europe particularly and other world markets.

And it seems like that pitch resonated from the beginning.

But you're seeing different categories.

So on the one hand, you've got these individuals that are definitely not household names.

Gentry Beach, who has business interests in a lot of sectors.

On the other hand, you have some of the biggest names in corporate America.

ExxonMobil, our journal colleagues revealed earlier this year, had had secret meetings with Rosneft, which is the biggest Russian state oil and gas company.

The opportunity is so potentially lucrative.

that I think these companies are obviously still interested in seeing what kind of options are available.

Now, this is entirely a play that is dependent on there being a peace deal.

At the moment, these assets don't make a huge amount of financial sense for the potential buyers.

But if there was to be a peace deal, Europe still needs energy.

Russia can provide the cheapest energy.

And if American companies were somehow in the middle, it could be a bonanza, frankly.

One place where we saw Europe really having to scramble was after Alaska.

— Wyckoff and Dmitriev had believed that the time was right for a bilateral summit, had believed that there was a landing space where Putin and Trump could agree something in Alaska.

And in Alaska, what our reporting found is that there was conversation about some of these shared business interests and shared business opportunities.

It wasn't just a conversation about what was happening on the front line.

Ultimately, Putin wasn't ready to do a deal and there wasn't a deal that the Ukrainians would have accepted.