President Donald Trump spent the week preparing the land for his high-risk summit with Russia, scheduled for Friday (15) in Alaska, with very low expectations. Few believe that he is able to advance significant advances to interrupt the fighting between Russia and Ukraine, given the huge distance between the positions of the two countries.
However, these two conflict countries seem to agree on at least one point: simply meeting with Trump already represents a great victory for President Vladimir Putin. The meeting takes the Russian leader from diplomatic isolation and gives him the opportunity to persuade American president to face.
“Putin’s visit to the US means the total collapse of the concept of isolating Russia. Total collapse,” celebrated the television controlled by Kremlin after the announcement of the summit, rushed last weekend.
Take your business to the next level with the help of the country’s leading entrepreneurs!
For Russia, “this is a breakthrough, even if they don’t agree on much,” said Sergei Mikheyev, a pro-war Russian political scientist and a constant figure on state TV.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, excluded from Alaska negotiations about the future of his country, came to the same conclusion, telling reporters on Tuesday: “Putin will win it. Because he is looking for, sorry, photos. He needs a picture of the meeting with President Trump.”
But the meeting goes beyond a simple photo. In addition to softening Russia’s land status in the West, the summit generated divisions within NATO – a constant goal from Russia – and postponed Trump’s threat to impose new hard sanctions. Just over two weeks ago, Trump promised that if Putin would not agree with a ceasefire until last Friday, he would punish Moscow and countries like China and India that help Russia buying their oil and gas.
Continues after advertising
The deadline passed without interruption of war – which actually intensified with the Russian summer offensive – and without new economic penalties against Russia.
“Instead of being hit by sanctions, Putin got a summit,” said Ryhor Nizhnikau, a Senior Russian expert at the Finnish Institute of International Affairs. “This is a huge victory for Putin, regardless of the result of the summit.”
Prior to the Meeting in Alaska, only two Western leaders-the prime ministers of little Slovakia and Hungary-had met with Putin since he ordered the Ukraine large-scale invasion in February 2022 and was the target of an international arrest warrant for war crimes in March 2023.
Continues after advertising
Many in Europe were perplexed by Trump’s decision to make a summit over Ukraine that excluded Zelensky, and European leaders pressed the president not to close an agreement on the back of Ukraine.
Trump tried to calm these fears on a video with European leaders, including Zelensky on Wednesday. The Europeans said they had aligned a Trump strategy to meet Putin, including the requirement that any peace plan will start with a ceasefire and not be negotiated without Ukraine on the table.
A peace agreement for Ukraine is not Putin’s true goal at the summit, said Tatiana Stanovaya, senior researcher at Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center. “His goal is to ensure Trump’s support to advance the Russian proposals.”
Continues after advertising
For Putin, she said, the meeting is a “tactical maneuver to turn the situation to her advantage” and calm the growing irritation of the White House with the delay of Kremlin to accept a ceasefire.
On the eve of the summit on Thursday, Kremlin indicated that he intends to include other topics beyond Ukraine in negotiations, such as the possible restoration of economic relations with the US and discussions about a new nuclear weapons agreement. The idea of weapons is part of longtime Russian efforts to frame the war in Ukraine as part of a larger conflict between East and West.
Trump called the meeting with Putin a “meeting to feel the terrain,” from which he will quickly move away if a peace agreement seems unlikely.
Continues after advertising
Neither the White House nor Kremlin publicly declared what kind of peace agreement they seek. But Trump said he could involve “some territories exchange,” something he believes he is well prepared to negotiate, as former New York Real Estate Desenvidor.
Zelensky has rejected any land exchange, stating that he has no authority, according to the Ukrainian Constitution, to negotiate parts of the country. Accepting this would probably trigger a serious political crisis in Kiev and advance one of Putin’s old goals: to overthrow Zelensky.
The delivery of the Eastern regions of Ukraine would also destroy Trump’s hopes that the US can once benefit from Ukraine’s rare mineral reserves, mostly located in territories that Russia claims as its own.
Continues after advertising
“The worst scenario for Ukraine and, more widely, is that Putin make an acceptable offer for the US, but Zelensky can’t accept internally,” said Samuel Charap, a political scientist and co-author of a book on Ukraine and post-soviet eurasia.
This, he added, could lead Trump to resume his openly hostile posture he adopted in February. At the time, he criticized Zelensky in the White House for showing little gratitude for American aid and continuing a war that, according to him, Ukraine could not win.
Russia also recently rejected the idea of exchange of territories, in which its troops would retreat from part of the areas conquered during the war.
“Every place where a Russian soldier has stepped will be undoubtedly maintained by Russia,” Putin’s party, influential parliamentary parliamentary, told state television this week. This, he added, is Russia’s “red line”.
Kremlin did not indicate that it would accept something less than claiming much of Ukraine without concessions.
“We have no doubt that the Russian posture remains unchanged,” Lithuania Defense Minister Dovile Sakaliene said in an interview. She added: “They have no concept of ceasefire, and any concession is seen as an incentive to scale conflict.”
Putin, veteran master of manipulation, will surely work hard at Alaska to paint Zelensky as an uncompromising obstacle to peace.
“Trump thinks he can look into Putin’s eyes and close a deal. He believes in his own talent as a negotiator,” said Nizhnikau, Finnish expert in Russia. “The problem is that Putin does this all his life and goes to this summit with the idea of manipulating Trump.”
Trump’s last summit with his Russian counterpart, held in 2018 in Helsinki during his first term, showed his tendency to accept Putin’s reality version. At the time, he said he did not see reasons to doubt President Russian’s negatives about interference in the 2016 presidential election.
This year, Trump suggested that Ukraine would be responsible for the invasion of its own territory and refused to accompany the traditional US Western Allies in voting on a UN resolution condemning Russian aggression. On Sunday night, Zelensky expressed concern that Trump could easily be “deceived.”
Trump responded annoyed on Monday to Zelensky’s insistence that he could not give up territory. “He is allowed to go to war and kill everyone, but do you need permission to make a land exchange?” Trump countered. “There will be a land exchange, yes.”
Still, Charap said, the political scientist, “Putin can’t count on victory yet.” Despite firm control over the Russian political system and the main media, it has internal concerns, especially about the territorial theme, if the exchange suggested by Trump Avance. “Territory is a politically explosive theme, especially for Ukraine, but also for Russia.”
After years igniting nationalism in Russia, Putin gave freedom to a noisy subculture of bloggers and pro-war commentators. When the host of a weekly news TV show celebrated on Sunday that the meeting in Alaska could mean the end of the so -called “special military operation” in Ukraine, nationalist bloggers reacted with fury.
Putin complained one of them, “apparently decided to play the towel.”
c.2025 The New York Times Company
