Don't write off the Putin-Trump summit just yet
Trump is seemingly trying to dial down expectations, billing the summit as a 'feel-out meeting' with the Russian leader to try to reach a diplomatic solution to the more than 3-year-old Russian war in Ukraine.
The event follows a recent period where Trump had become more critical of Putin's role in continuing the war, giving the Russian leader a 50-day deadline to end the war or else face new US sanctions.
Trump subsequently reversed course on military support for Ukraine and stepped up weapons shipments. However, he has always made it clear that his priority is to restore a good relationship with Russia, rather than save Ukraine from defeat.
Trump's track record of admiration for Putin, and the summit format that excludes both Ukraine and its European allies, has provided ample fodder for critics of U.S. policy under Trump.
Military scholar Lawrence Freedman expressed a common critical refrain in expressing fears that Trump will concede Putin's core demands in Ukraine in return for a ceasefire. Likewise, CNN's international security editor, correspondent Nick Paton Walsh, said 'it is hard to see how a deal emerges from the bilateral that does not eviscerate Ukraine.'
Indeed, few mainstream establishment commentators in the U.S. or European capitals are supporting Trump's initiative, though Anatole Lieven, at the anti-interventionist Quincy Institute, was one of the few giving at least a lukewarm endorsement.
Meanwhile, in Moscow, despite Trump's vague talk of a 'land swap' that implies Ukraine could regain some lost territory, the uniformly pro-government Russian press is already hailing the upcoming summit as a victory for Putin and a 'a catastrophe for Kyiv,' as the MK newspaper declared.
Still, as a long-time observer of Russian politics, I believe it would be premature to write off the summit as an exercise doomed to fail. Respected Russian emigre journalist Tatyana Stanovaya, for one, has argued that the meeting offers the 'first more or less real attempt to stop the war.'
And there are several important developments that mainstream commentary has overlooked in arguing against prospects for the Alaska summit.
Despite Trump's repeated pledge to end the war in Ukraine, there has been no progress to that end thus far. Trump's earlier efforts to broker a ceasefire, in February and April, were both rebuffed by Putin.
But since then, a number of factors have shifted that could allow Trump some leverage in talks this time around.
Seven months into his second term, Trump appears flush with confidence and has shown more willingness to project power to advance American interests.
In June, he joined Israel's airstrikes against Iran, Russia's biggest ally in the Middle East. On Aug. 8, he hosted the presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan at the White House to sign a historic peace deal – a huge diplomatic defeat for Russia, which historically has dominated the politics of the south Caucasus region.
Trump's ongoing global trade war is also alarming for Russia. On Aug. 7, Trump slapped punitive new tariffs on 90 countries that failed to make deals before his deadline. Trump has shown himself willing to use American power to bully trade partners who cannot effectively retaliate — such as Brazil, Canada, Switzerland and now India.
Indeed, Trump noticed that India bought US$80 billion of Russian oil last year — more than China. On Aug. 6, the same day that Trump announced the Alaska meeting, he imposed 50% tariffs on India, which will not come into effect for 21 days unless India cuts back on imports of Russian crude.
That creates real leverage for Trump against Putin should he want to use it in Alaska. With the Russian economy under strain and with global oil prices falling, Russia risks losing critical revenue from selling oil to India. That could conceivably be the tipping point for Putin, persuading him to halt the war.
As significant as those shifts could be, there are still several grounds for skepticism.
First, India may ignore Trump's oil sanction. Key Indian exports to the US, such as iPhones and pharmaceuticals, are exempt from the 50% tariff, and they account for about $20 billion of India's $80 billion annual exports to the U.S.
Second, the global oil market is highly adaptable. Russian oil not bought by India could easily be picked up by China, Turkey, Italy, Malaysia and others. Even if Russia lost $10 billion to 20 billion as a result of the India sanctions, with overall government revenue of $415 billion a year, that would not derail Moscow's ability to wage war on Ukraine. Ukrainian firefighters work to put out fires stemming from Russian artillery shelling of the city of Kostiantynivka, a sign of the nearly constant toil of the conflict. Photo by Diego Herrera Carcedo/Anadolu via Getty Images / The Conversation
It remains unclear what Trump actually wants to achieve in Alaska. The details of the deal he is trying to persuade Putin to accept are unclear.
For the Trump administration, the basic idea for ending the conflict appears to be land for peace: an end to military action by both sides and de facto recognition of the Ukrainian territory currently occupied by Russian forces.
One glaring problem with this formulation is that Russia does not control all the territory of the four Ukrainian provinces that it claims. They occupy nearly all of Luhansk, but not all of Donetsk, and only 60% of Zaporizhzhia and Kherson.
If Russia insists on taking all of Donetsk province, for example, Ukraine would have to hand over about 2,500 square miles (6,500 square kilometers), with 200,000 people, mainly in the cities of Kramatorsk and Slovyansk.
It is hard to imagine President Volodymyr Zelensky agreeing to such a concession.
Yet it is equally hard to see Putin giving up his claim to all four provinces, which were formally incorporated into the Russian Federation in October 2022.
In a June 2024 speech to the Russian foreign ministry, Putin laid out his most thorough analysis of the 'root causes' and course of the conflict. He stated that the legal status of the four provinces as part of Russia 'is closed forever and is no longer a matter for discussion.'
Clearly, the territorial question is the biggest hurdle facing any would-be peacemaker, including Trump.
Other issues, such as Ukraine's request for security guarantees, or Russia's demands for the 'denazification' and 'demilitarization' of Ukraine, could be dealt with later through negotiation and third-party mediation.
There are other factors that play into the chances of peace now.
Both Ukrainian and Russian societies are tired of a conflict that neither of them wanted. But at the same time, in neither country does most of the public want peace at any price.
If Trump can persuade Putin to agree to give up his claims to the entire territory of the four provinces in Ukraine's east, that would be a substantial concession – and one that Zelenskyy may be well-advised to pocket.
Putin would also expect something in return — such as the lifting of international sanctions and restoration of full diplomatic relations with the U.S. Then Putin could fly back to Moscow and tell the Russian people that Russia has won the war.
If such a deal transpires in Alaska, Trump would then face the challenge of persuading Ukraine and the Europeans to accept it.
However, given Putin's apparent confidence that Russia is winning the war, it remains unlikely that he will be persuaded by anything that Trump has to offer in Anchorage.
Peter Rutland is professor of government, Wesleyan University
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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AllAfrica
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Russia's disinformation campaigns and sabotage of infrastructure, including railways in Poland and Germany and undersea cables in the Gulf of Finland and Baltic Sea, are well documented. Its strategic objectives have focused on deterring action on Ukraine and sowing disagreement between its allies, as well as attempting to undermine democratic values in the West. Europe is under pressure on multiple fronts: meeting new defence spending targets of 5% of GDP while economic growth is slowing, reducing the dependence of its supply chains on China and managing demographic challenges. These vulnerabilities make it susceptible to disinformation and have deepened divisions along political and socioeconomic fault lines – all of which Moscow has repeatedly exploited. A land-for-ceasefire deal would not address these threats. For Ukraine, the danger of such a deal is clear. Russia might pause large-scale physical warfare in Ukraine under a deal, but it would almost certainly continue destabilising the country from within. Having never been punished for violating past agreements to respect Ukraine's territorial integrity, such as when it annexed Crimea in 2014, Moscow would have little incentive to honour new ones. The government in Kyiv, and Ukrainian society more broadly, would see any accompanying security guarantees as fragile at best and temporary at worst. The result would probably be a deepening of Ukraine's vulnerabilities. Some Ukrainians might support doubling down on militarisation and investment in defense technologies. Others, losing faith in national security and reconstruction, could disengage or leave the country. Either way, in the absence of national unity, reconstruction would become far more difficult. Ukraine's reconstruction will be costly, to the tune of US$524 billion, according to the World Bank. It will also require managing a web of interconnected security, financial, social and political risks. These include displacement and economic challenges brought on by the war, as well as the need to secure capital flows across different regions. It will also need to continue addressing governance and corruption challenges. A permanent territorial concession would make addressing these risks even more difficult. Such a deal is likely to split public opinion in Ukraine, with those heavily involved in the war effort asking: 'What exactly have we been fighting for?' Recriminations would almost certainly follow during the next presidential and parliamentary elections, deepening divisions and undermining Ukraine's ability to pursue the systemic approach needed for reconstruction. Ongoing security concerns in border regions, particularly near Russia, would be likely to prompt further population flight. And how many of the over 5 million Ukrainians currently living abroad would return to help reconstruct the country under these conditions is far from certain. Financing reconstruction would also be more challenging. Public funds from donors and international institutions have helped sustain emergency energy and transport infrastructure repairs in the short term and will continue to play a role. But private investment will be critical moving forward. Investors will be looking not only at Ukraine's geopolitical risk profile, but also its political stability and social cohesion. Few investors would be willing to commit capital in a country that cannot guarantee a stable security and political environment. Taken together, these factors would make large-scale reconstruction in Ukraine nearly impossible. Beyond fundamental issues of accountability and just peace, a land-for-ceasefire deal would be simply a bad bargain. It will almost certainly sow deeper, more intractable problems for Ukraine, Europe and the West. It would undermine security, stall reconstruction and hand Moscow both time and a strategic advantage to come back stronger against a Ukraine that may be ill-prepared to respond. Trump would do well to avoid committing Ukraine to such an arrangement in further talks with Putin over the coming months. Olena Borodyna is senior geopolitical risks advisor, ODI Global This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
