The Guardian view on the Trump-Putin summit: European leaders must help Zelenskyy resist a carve-up
It was ostensibly on those grounds that the US president set an 8 August deadline for Mr Putin to agree to a peace deal with Ukraine, on pain of 'significant' sanctions. Yet instead of being punished for ignoring this injunction too, Mr Putin has been rewarded with a summit with Mr Trump in the United States, and apparently allowed to veto any suggestion that Volodymyr Zelenskyy should also attend.
Suddenly, and alarmingly, it feels a little like February again, when Mr Trump and his vice-president, JD Vance, treated Mr Zelenskyy with outrageous disrespect in the White House, and appeared disposed to pursuing a peace agreement on Mr Putin's terms. There are conflicting accounts of discussions between Mr Putin and the US presidential envoy, Steve Witkoff, last week. But there is no evidence that Mr Putin has any intention of compromising on his maximalist goals in Ukraine, including the annexation of eastern regions, demilitarisation and the abandoning of Ukraine's aspiration to Nato membership.
Morally and practically speaking, the Ukrainian president's absence on Friday will mean that any 'deal' struck by Mr Trump and Mr Putin in Alaska lacks all legitimacy. But Kyiv understandably fears a carve-up in which Ukraine is pressured by Washington and Moscow to unilaterally surrender land in its east, and make other concessions, in exchange for a pause in the fighting.
This would be, of course, to reward Mr Putin's illegal invasion and betray a nation whose fate is tied up with Europe's security as a whole. The very fact of Friday's summit, from which European leaders are also excluded, is already a wholly unearned diplomatic win for Mr Putin. Mr Trump is driven by mercantilism and ego: he may be persuaded that if Ukraine could be bullied into accepting the unacceptable, opportunities relating to Russian oil and gas could be unleashed, and the Nobel peace prize he covets become a genuine possibility.
After frantic mediation, it emerged on Monday that Mr Zelenskyy and European leaders may take part in a joint call with Mr Trump on Wednesday. The Ukrainian president has already made it clear that there will be no concession of further territory to Russia's occupying forces. In the lead-up to Alaska, and afterwards, Europe must ensure that his words are lent weight by a unified and robust stance on what would constitute a just peace, as opposed to one imposed against Ukraine's will.
Ultimately, that will need to include credible security guarantees for Kyiv from Europe and the US, and an agreed sanctions regime to be enacted should Russia renege on its commitments. But the first priority must be pressuring Mr Putin to agree to a ceasefire immediately in order that meaningful negotiations can begin. Until last week, that appeared to be the approach Mr Trump had decided to adopt. It was the right one.
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The Guardian
14 minutes ago
- The Guardian
Ukraine will not cede land that could be Russian springboard for new war, Zelenskyy says
Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said Ukraine could not agree to a Russian proposal to give up more of his country's territory in exchange for a ceasefire because Moscow would use what it gained as a springboard to start a future war. The Ukrainian president said he did not believe that Donald Trump supported Russia's demands, and he expressed hope the US leader would act as an honest mediator when he meets Vladimir Putin in Alaska on Friday. He added there was no sign that Russia was preparing to implement a ceasefire, as reports emerged that small sabotage groups had pierced Ukrainian defences in the eastern Donbas, advancing about six miles in three days. Zelenskyy also warned that Russia was planning new offensives on three parts of the frontline. Speaking to journalists in the run-up to the Trump-Putin summit, and a day before a virtual meeting with US and European leaders, Zelenskyy said he believed that Putin wanted to dominate his country because he 'does not want a sovereign Ukraine'. It was therefore dangerous, Zelenskyy said, for Ukraine to be forced by the US into accepting Russia's demand to take over the parts of Donbas it does not control after the Alaska summit. The region sought by Russia amounted to 'about 90,000 square kilometres' of the country, he said. Last week Russia indicated it was prepared to consider a ceasefire in the Ukraine war for the first time, in exchange for Ukraine withdrawing from the parts of Donbas it still controlled. Though Trump then suggested that Russia and Ukraine could engage in some 'swapping of territories', Zelenskyy said he understood that Russia was 'simply offering not to advance further, not to withdraw from anywhere' and that swaps were not on the table. 'We will not leave Donbas. We cannot do it,' Zelenskyy said. 'For Russians, Donbas is a springboard for a future new offensive.' The region demanded by Russia was too strategically important to give up, he said, because it was a heavily fortified area that protected Ukraine's central cities. 'I have heard nothing – not a single proposal – that would guarantee that a new war will not start tomorrow and that Putin will not try to occupy at least Dnipro, Zaporizhzhia and Kharkiv' once Russia had gained all of Donbas, Zelenskyy said. Ukraine's leader said he wanted Putin instead to agree to a ceasefire on the current frontlines and for both sides to return all prisoners of war and missing children, before any discussion about territory and the future security of the country. 'Any question of territory cannot be separated from security guarantees,' he said. Zelenskyy said he would not be at the summit in Alaska, the first face-to-face meeting between Trump and Putin with both in office since 2018. But he said he hoped it would be followed by 'a trilateral meeting' with Trump and Putin, though the Russian leader has so far said he is not willing to meet Zelenskyy. The Ukrainian leader also expressed faith in the unpredictable Trump, who he said could act as an honest broker between himself and Putin. 'I do not believe that Putin's proposal is Trump's proposal,' he said. 'I believe that Trump represents the United States of America. He is acting as a mediator – he is in the middle, not on Russia's side. Let him not be on our side but in the middle.' He said he did not know what exactly Putin and Trump were going to discuss in Alaska, saying 'probably there is a bilateral track' of talks about other topics of mutual interest, such as trade, sanctions and business. But he said Putin had scored a diplomatic win in securing the meeting: 'He is seeking, excuse me, photographs. He needs a photo of his meeting with President Trump.' Zelenskyy said Russia was desperately trying to show it was winning the war and that the Kremlin wanted 'to create a certain narrative, especially in the American media, that Russia is moving forward and Ukraine is losing' by mounting sabotage attacks in the Donbas region. He acknowledged that 'groups of Russians advanced about 10 kilometres in several places' although he said: 'They have no equipment, only weapons in their hands,' and said that some had already been killed or captured. But the breach is ill-timed from Ukraine's point of view. In Alaska, Putin is likely to tell Trump that such successes show that Russia is gradually winning the three-year war in the east, and so US future support for Kyiv will be wasted. War maps showed two lines of advance east of the town of Dobropillya, and gains of about six miles since Friday. Experts said the next few days would be critical to see if Ukraine could contain the break in the front. Ukraine's military said Russia had concentrated about 110,000 troops in the sector and that the invaders were 'brazenly attempting to infiltrate our defensive lines with sabotage and small infantry groups, regardless of their losses'. The military command said in a social media post that reserves had been deployed at the order of Gen Oleksandr Syrskyi, Ukraine's chief military commander, in an effort to restore the frontlines. The Institute for the Study of War said Russian 'sabotage and reconnaissance groups' had infiltrated Ukrainian-held territory near Dobropillya, a key supply point in the west of the Donetsk region. 'It is premature to call the Russian advances in the Dobropillya area an operational-level breakthrough,' the ISW said on Monday night. It said the invaders would now try to turn 'tactical advances' into something more significant. Russia is taking heavy casualties of about 1,000 a day, with 500 killed and 500 wounded on Monday, Zelenskyy said, as it relies heavily on infantry assaults to break Kyiv's defensive lines. Zelenskyy said Ukraine's casualties on the same day were much smaller – a total of 340 – '18 killed and 243 wounded, with 79 missing in action'. But in the past when Moscow's forces have broken through, Ukraine has frequently proved unable to push them back. A former senior Ukrainian army officer, Bohdan Krotevych, said the piercing of Ukraine's lines had come about because 'instead of reinforcing defensive units with infantry', senior commanders in Kyiv had prioritised deploying newly mobilised soldiers into assault forces, leaving units already on the frontline weakened. 'To stabilise the front, we must reinforce brigades on the line of contact with infantry,' Krotevych said, and he called for Ukraine to urgently strengthen its reserve forces and adopt a defensive strategy rather than try to counter high-risk Russian infantry assaults with its own. Dobropillya is a key supply point for the beleaguered towns of Pokrovsk and Myrnohrad to the south and the principal cities of Ukrainian-held Donbas to the east from the centre of the country. Zelenskyy said Russia was preparing a fresh offensive in the autumn involving nearly 30,000 troops moved from Sumy, in the north-east of Ukraine, 'in three directions' on the frontline – towards Zaporizhzhia in the south and Pokrovsk and the nearby Novopavlika in the south-east.
The Herald Scotland
28 minutes ago
- The Herald Scotland
Trump's Washington takeover begins as National Guard troops arrive
The influx came the morning after Mr Trump announced he would be activating the guard members and taking over the department. The US president's bid to take over public safety in Washington reflects an escalation of his aggressive approach to law enforcement (Alex Brandon/AP) He cited a crime emergency — but referred to the same crime that city officials stress is already falling noticeably. The president holds the legal right to make such moves for at least a month. Mayor Muriel Bowser pledged to work alongside the federal officials Mr Trump has tasked with overseeing the city's law enforcement, while insisting the police chief remained in charge of the department and its officers. 'How we got here or what we think about the circumstances — right now we have more police, and we want to make sure we use them,' she told reporters. It is unclear how visible and aggressive the federal presence in Washington could be (Julia Demaree Nikhinson/AP) The tone was a shift from the day before, when Ms Bowser said Mr Trump's plan to take over the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) and call in the National Guard was not a productive step and argued his perceived state of emergency simply did not match the declining crime numbers. Still, the law gives the federal government more sway over the capital city than in US states, and Ms Bowser said her administration's ability to push back was limited. Meanwhile, attorney general Pam Bondi called the Tuesday morning meeting productive in a social media post and said the justice department would 'work closely with the DC city government' to 'make Washington, DC, safe again.' While Mr Trump invokes his plan by saying that 'we're going to take our capital back', Ms Bowser and the MPD maintain that violent crime overall in Washington has decreased to a 30-year low after a sharp rise in 2023. Carjackings, for example, dropped about 50% in 2024 and are down again this year. Ms Bowser, a Democrat, spent much of Mr Trump's first term in office openly sparring with the Republican president. Washington mayor Muriel Bowser said crime in the city had been dropping steadily (Julia Demaree Nikhinson/AP) She fended off his initial plans for a military parade through the streets and stood in public opposition when he called in a multi-agency flood of federal law enforcement to confront anti-police brutality protesters in summer 2020. She later had the words 'Black Lives Matter' painted in giant yellow letters on the street about a block from the White House. In Mr Trump's second term, backed by Republican control of both houses of Congress, Ms Bowser has walked a public tightrope for months, emphasising common ground with the Trump administration on issues such as the successful effort to bring the NFL's Washington Commanders back to the District of Columbia. She watched with open concern for the city streets as Mr Trump finally got his military parade this summer. Her decision to dismantle Black Lives Matter Plaza earlier this year served as a neat metaphor for just how much the power dynamics between the two executives has evolved. Now that fraught relationship enters uncharted territory as Mr Trump has followed through on months of what many DC officials had quietly hoped were empty threats. The new standoff has cast Ms Bowser in a sympathetic light, even among her long-time critics. 'It's a power play and we're an easy target,' Clinique Chapman, chief executive of the DC Justice Lab, said. A frequent critic of Ms Bowser, whom she accuses of 'over policing our youth' with the recent expansions of Washington's youth curfew, Ms Chapman said Mr Trump's latest move 'is not about creating a safer DC. It's just about power'. Ms Bowser contends that all the power resides with Mr Trump and that her administration can do little other than comply and make the best of it. For Mr Trump, the effort to take over public safety in Washington reflects an escalation of his aggressive approach to law enforcement. Protesters demonstrate against Mr Trump's planned use of federal law enforcement and National Guard troops in Washington (Julia Demaree Nikhinson/AP) The District of Columbia's status as a congressionally established federal district gives him a unique opportunity to push his tough-on-crime agenda, though he has not proposed solutions to the root causes of homelessness or crime. 'Let me be crystal clear,' attorney general Pam Bondi said during Mr Trump's announcement news conference. 'Crime in DC is ending and ending today.' Mr Trump's declaration of a state of emergency fits the general pattern of his second term in office: He has declared states of emergency on issues ranging from border protection to economic tariffs, enabling him to essentially rule via executive order. In many cases, he has moved forward while the courts sorted them out.
Rhyl Journal
33 minutes ago
- Rhyl Journal
Trump's Washington takeover begins as National Guard troops arrive
It comes after the White House ordered federal forces to take over the city's police department and reduce crime in what the president called — without substantiation — a lawless city. The influx came the morning after Mr Trump announced he would be activating the guard members and taking over the department. He cited a crime emergency — but referred to the same crime that city officials stress is already falling noticeably. The president holds the legal right to make such moves for at least a month. Mayor Muriel Bowser pledged to work alongside the federal officials Mr Trump has tasked with overseeing the city's law enforcement, while insisting the police chief remained in charge of the department and its officers. 'How we got here or what we think about the circumstances — right now we have more police, and we want to make sure we use them,' she told reporters. The tone was a shift from the day before, when Ms Bowser said Mr Trump's plan to take over the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) and call in the National Guard was not a productive step and argued his perceived state of emergency simply did not match the declining crime numbers. Still, the law gives the federal government more sway over the capital city than in US states, and Ms Bowser said her administration's ability to push back was limited. Meanwhile, attorney general Pam Bondi called the Tuesday morning meeting productive in a social media post and said the justice department would 'work closely with the DC city government' to 'make Washington, DC, safe again.' While Mr Trump invokes his plan by saying that 'we're going to take our capital back', Ms Bowser and the MPD maintain that violent crime overall in Washington has decreased to a 30-year low after a sharp rise in 2023. Carjackings, for example, dropped about 50% in 2024 and are down again this year. Ms Bowser, a Democrat, spent much of Mr Trump's first term in office openly sparring with the Republican president. She fended off his initial plans for a military parade through the streets and stood in public opposition when he called in a multi-agency flood of federal law enforcement to confront anti-police brutality protesters in summer 2020. She later had the words 'Black Lives Matter' painted in giant yellow letters on the street about a block from the White House. In Mr Trump's second term, backed by Republican control of both houses of Congress, Ms Bowser has walked a public tightrope for months, emphasising common ground with the Trump administration on issues such as the successful effort to bring the NFL's Washington Commanders back to the District of Columbia. She watched with open concern for the city streets as Mr Trump finally got his military parade this summer. Her decision to dismantle Black Lives Matter Plaza earlier this year served as a neat metaphor for just how much the power dynamics between the two executives has evolved. Now that fraught relationship enters uncharted territory as Mr Trump has followed through on months of what many DC officials had quietly hoped were empty threats. The new standoff has cast Ms Bowser in a sympathetic light, even among her long-time critics. 'It's a power play and we're an easy target,' Clinique Chapman, chief executive of the DC Justice Lab, said. A frequent critic of Ms Bowser, whom she accuses of 'over policing our youth' with the recent expansions of Washington's youth curfew, Ms Chapman said Mr Trump's latest move 'is not about creating a safer DC. It's just about power'. Ms Bowser contends that all the power resides with Mr Trump and that her administration can do little other than comply and make the best of it. For Mr Trump, the effort to take over public safety in Washington reflects an escalation of his aggressive approach to law enforcement. The District of Columbia's status as a congressionally established federal district gives him a unique opportunity to push his tough-on-crime agenda, though he has not proposed solutions to the root causes of homelessness or crime. 'Let me be crystal clear,' attorney general Pam Bondi said during Mr Trump's announcement news conference. 'Crime in DC is ending and ending today.' Mr Trump's declaration of a state of emergency fits the general pattern of his second term in office: He has declared states of emergency on issues ranging from border protection to economic tariffs, enabling him to essentially rule via executive order. In many cases, he has moved forward while the courts sorted them out.
