If the oracles of the exchange are to be believed, the Anchorage handshake of August 15th shall be the final chapter of personal diplomacy between Washington and Moscow in this calendar year. Polymarket, reporting on a staggering twenty-four-hour volume of nearly seven million dollars, places the odds of a second Trump-Putin encounter before December 31st at a precise and merciless zero percent. The markets, it appears, have rendered their verdict with unusual conviction.

The stakes demand explanation. The Alaska summit convened amid urgent negotiations over Ukraine's fate, making any follow-up meeting a matter of geopolitical consequence rather than mere ceremony. Yet prediction markets have assigned not a whisper of probability to such a reunion, suggesting that traders worldwide consider the diplomatic machinery between the two capitals to be, for now, thoroughly stalled. Whatever agreements or disagreements emerged from Elmendorf-Richardson, the market consensus holds they will not be revisited face-to-face this year.

Only a dramatic rupture or breakthrough in Ukraine negotiations — the kind that demands immediate personal intervention — could plausibly compel both men back to the same table before the new year arrives.