Opinion: We Already Know the Outcome of Trump and Putin's Next Summit
Despite what you might read elsewhere, there is absolutely no chance that Trump actually stands up to Putin or displays anything much other than the curtsying servility that is his signature move in the presence of the Russian dictator.
Combine that fact with the absence of Ukraine's president Volodymyr Zelensky from the meeting and it is pretty clear that there will be no real breakthrough for peace or an end to Russian aggression against its brave neighbor.
In other words, the meeting's outcomes are very limited. One possibility, the best-case scenario from Trump's perspective, is that it tees up another get-together, perhaps this time one that actually involves Zelensky. In my view, announcing that they are working toward such a goal—even in vague terms—is what is most likely. This would allow Trump to save face, even to present himself as the Nobel-worthy peacemaker he is currently cosplaying as. (It's hard to be considered a genuine candidate for the Nobel Prize, however, when you actively support genocide in Gaza, launch attacks on Iran, turn troops against those seeking refuge in your country and cut U.S. support for the battered people of Ukraine.)
This outcome is the one that Zelensky and Europe are also banking on. The Ukrainian leader and those from top European countries got together Wednesday to establish their five principles on which any deal must be based. They also spoke to Trump in a conversation all described as productive. Their primary message was that there be adequate security protections for Ukraine in any deal and, per Zelensky, that Russia not be allowed to veto Ukraine having a relationship with NATO, but it was just as clear that the purpose of their discussions was to send Trump a message that the Europeans are aligned with Ukraine and would resist being bullied into a private deal struck between the U.S. and Russia.
Whether Putin will go along with any of that is another matter—he has shown no inclination to be flexible thus far. As a result, the summit could end with little more than a little pouting from Trump that he is 'disappointed' by Putin's intransigence. Who would ever expect a war criminal who has broken every agreement he has entered into to be hard to deal with?
That is as tough as Trump is likely to get in the presence of a guy he admires, who has helped him get elected, who he might need in the future and, who knows, may possess some information about him that he would rather not have made public.
In this instance, will Trump storm out and announce real penalties with teeth on Russia—the transfer of Russian assets currently held by the U.S. to Ukraine; the imposition of secondary sanctions on Russia's number one customer for its oil, China? Sure, he has tried to portray himself as being willing to stand up to Putin, and even some commentators have bought this charade. But there is no real evidence to support it.
In fact, the primary evidence—that he has not shifted his long-held pro-Russian stance—is that he has not imposed any real sanctions despite six months of Russia ignoring his pleas for peace and pounding Ukraine mercilessly. Trump has, meanwhile, cut U.S. support for Ukraine dramatically and shows no sign of reversing that stance. (Indeed, Trump's entire 'I can solve this war in 24 hours' campaign was based on his idea that he could squeeze Ukraine by stopping U.S. support, and that they would have to settle on Russian terms.) And he appears to have completely internalized his long-repeated lies and misstatements about the conflict; that both sides are equally responsible for the war and that many of the people of Crimea and Eastern Ukraine are really Russian and want to be Russian.
Trump often peddles the idea that Russia would never have started the war were he in the White House. The problem with this is that Russia started the war with its invasion of Ukraine in 2014. Hostilities raged throughout Trump's last presidency and he did very little to stop it.
Does that sound like an honest broker or credible peacemaker to you?
Finally, of course, the terms that Trump seems to be most comfortable with for settling the war are, more or less, the ones Putin has dictated: Russia will get to keep most of the land it has illegally seized. Ukraine will not be allowed to join NATO. Ukraine will not be allowed to develop robust military defenses. And any other big issues to be resolved will be punted far off into the future.
Not only are these terms unacceptable to Ukraine, they are neither in the interest of the European Union or the U.S. They create a circumstance (and set a precedent) in which Russia's aggression has been rewarded and its threats to its neighbors in the West will be greater not less.
The White House is already trying to lower expectations for the summit because they too realize real progress toward peace is likely to remain elusive. A ceasefire is the likely best outcome—this works just fine for Putin, whose army is battered and who has big economic problems at home he wants to get to. More than that? Unlikely.
Which suggests that absent something really ugly happening —say, Trump's fawning publicly on Putin as he did in Helsinki in 2018—at the summit, it is likely to produce very little progress or evidence that Trump's position has much changed or that the U.S. really has any leverage it is inclined to use to force a shift in the Russian position.
In other words, while the event will be interesting to watch because who doesn't love a bromance we can pretty well predict the outcomes now because they have been pre-baked into the more or less unchanging and seemingly unchangeable positions of Trump and his political Daddy.
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The Hill
7 minutes ago
- The Hill
Ukrainian defenses face a challenge as Russian troops make gains ahead of the Putin-Trump summit
DONETSK REGION, Ukraine (AP) — Days before the leaders of Russia and the U.S. hold a summit meeting in Alaska, Moscow's forces breached Ukrainian lines in a series of infiltrations in the country's industrial heartland of Donetsk. This week's advances amount to only a limited success for Russia, analysts say, since it still needs to consolidate its gains before achieving a true breakthrough. Still, it's a potentially dangerous moment for Ukraine. Russian President Vladimir Putin will likely try to persuade U.S. President Donald Trump to pressure Ukraine by arguing the 3 1/2-year-old war is going badly for Kyiv, said Mykola Bieleskov, a senior analyst at CBA Initiatives Center. 'The key risk for Ukraine is that the Kremlin will try to turn certain local gains on the battlefield into strategic victories at the negotiating table,' he said. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Tuesday that Putin wants Ukraine to withdraw from the remaining 30% of the Donetsk region that Kyiv still controls as part of a ceasefire deal, a proposal the Ukrainian leader categorically rejected. After years of fighting, Russia still does not fully control all of the Donetsk region, which it illegally annexed in 2022, along with the Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions. Infiltration by small groups of Russian forces Attention has been focused on Pokrovsk — a key highway and rail junction that once was home to about 60,000 and now is partially encircled — but Russian forces have been probing for weaknesses north of the city, according to battlefield analysis site DeepState. The forces found a gap east of the coal-mining town of Dobropillia, and advanced about 10 kilometers (6 miles). Zelenskyy noted its clear significance to the summit: 'To create a certain information backdrop ahead of Putin's meeting with Trump, especially in the American information space, suggesting that Russia is moving forward and Ukraine is losing ground.' Small groups of Russian troops are slipping past the first defensive line, hiding and trying to build up their forces, said Dmytro Trehubov, spokesman for Ukraine's 'Dnipro' operational-strategic group. Ukraine's military has been repelling these attempts, he said, although DeepState said the situation has not been stabilized. Analysts described the breach near Dobropillia as a localized crisis that could escalate if the Russians are not neutralized and their main forces can widen the gap. Exploiting an absence of Ukrainian infantry The breach of the defensive line has seemed inevitable for months, according to a drone pilot in the area, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk publicly. Moscow's forces have been exploiting the lack of Ukrainian infantry, a problem tied not only to the country's stalled mobilization but also to poor management, the pilot said. 'We pay with territory and lives to fix mistakes — and we can keep fixing mistakes only as long as we have even a scrap of land left,' the pilot said. Ukrainian forces have tried to plug the gaps by extensive use of first-person-view drones — remotely piloted devices loaded with explosives that allow operators to see targets before striking. These FPVs have turned areas up to 20 kilometers (about 12 miles) from the front into deadly zones on both sides of the line. But because the Russians attack with small groups, it's hard to counter with drones alone. 'We can't launch 100 FPVs at once,' the pilot said, noting the drone operators would interfere with each other. With tactics and technology roughly equal on both sides, the Russians' superior manpower works to their advantage, said Bielieskov, the Kyiv-based analyst. 'They have no regard for human life. Very often, most of those they send are on a one-way mission,' he said. Stopping the infiltrations and assaults by armored vehicles requires different defenses and leadership structures — changes that have yet to appear on Ukraine's side, he said. Ukraine's military said Thursday additional troops have been moved to affected areas, with battle-hardened forces like the Azov brigade being deployed to the sector. However, the Deepstate map doesn't show any changes in favor of the Ukrainian army. Russia's focus on cutting supply routes Michael Kofman, a military analyst for the Carnegie Endowment, said in a post on X that it was too early to assess if the front line was collapsing, Russia is focused on expanding the breach of the front line into a corridor to support its ground forces, Bieleskov said. The strategy avoids direct assaults on heavily fortified urban centers, instead pushing through open terrain where Ukraine's troop shortages and large settlements make defense harder. If successful, such a move could bypass Russia's need to storm Kostiantynivka — once a city of over 67,000 people and now significantly ruined and on the verge of falling. That would complicate defending the region's last big cities of Sloviansk, Kramatorsk and Druzhkivka, posing a serious challenge for Ukraine's military. Cmdr. Serhii Filimonov of the 'Da Vinci Wolves' battalion of the 59th brigade, warned that Kostiantynivka could fall without a fight if Russia severs supply routes. With few major roads, maintaining logistics for the large number of Ukrainian forces in the area would become 'extremely difficult,' Filimonov said. Turning to the summit, Filimonov decried what he described as ongoing Russian killings and atrocities. 'And then the civilized world comes to them and says, 'Fine, let's make a deal.' That's not how it should be done,' he said.
Boston Globe
7 minutes ago
- Boston Globe
Ukrainian defenses face a challenge as Russian troops make gains ahead of the Putin-Trump summit
'The key risk for Ukraine is that the Kremlin will try to turn certain local gains on the battlefield into strategic victories at the negotiating table,' he said. Advertisement President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Tuesday that Putin wants Ukraine to withdraw from the remaining 30% of the Donetsk region that Kyiv still controls as part of a ceasefire deal, a proposal the Ukrainian leader categorically rejected. After years of fighting, Russia still does not fully control all of the Donetsk region, which it illegally annexed in 2022, along with the Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions. Infiltration by small groups of Russian forces Attention has been focused on Pokrovsk — a key highway and rail junction that once was home to about 60,000 and now is partially encircled — but Russian forces have been probing for weaknesses north of the city, according to battlefield analysis site DeepState. The forces found a gap east of the coal-mining town of Dobropillia, and advanced about 10 kilometers (6 miles). Advertisement Zelenskyy noted its clear significance to the summit: 'To create a certain information backdrop ahead of Putin's meeting with Trump, especially in the American information space, suggesting that Russia is moving forward and Ukraine is losing ground.' Small groups of Russian troops are slipping past the first defensive line, hiding and trying to build up their forces, said Dmytro Trehubov, spokesman for Ukraine's 'Dnipro' operational-strategic group. Ukraine's military has been repelling these attempts, he said, although DeepState said the situation has not been stabilized. Analysts described the breach near Dobropillia as a localized crisis that could escalate if the Russians are not neutralized and their main forces can widen the gap. Exploiting an absence of Ukrainian infantry The breach of the defensive line has seemed inevitable for months, according to a drone pilot in the area, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk publicly. Moscow's forces have been exploiting the lack of Ukrainian infantry, a problem tied not only to the country's stalled mobilization but also to poor management, the pilot said. 'We pay with territory and lives to fix mistakes — and we can keep fixing mistakes only as long as we have even a scrap of land left,' the pilot said. Ukrainian forces have tried to plug the gaps by extensive use of first-person-view drones — remotely piloted devices loaded with explosives that allow operators to see targets before striking. These FPVs have turned areas up to 20 kilometers (about 12 miles) from the front into deadly zones on both sides of the line. But because the Russians attack with small groups, it's hard to counter with drones alone. 'We can't launch 100 FPVs at once,' the pilot said, noting the drone operators would interfere with each other. Advertisement With tactics and technology roughly equal on both sides, the Russians' superior manpower works to their advantage, said Bielieskov, the Kyiv-based analyst. 'They have no regard for human life. Very often, most of those they send are on a one-way mission,' he said. Stopping the infiltrations and assaults by armored vehicles requires different defenses and leadership structures — changes that have yet to appear on Ukraine's side, he said. Ukraine's military said Thursday additional troops have been moved to affected areas, with battle-hardened forces like the Azov brigade being deployed to the sector. However, the Deepstate map doesn't show any changes in favor of the Ukrainian army. Russia's focus on cutting supply routes Michael Kofman, a military analyst for the Carnegie Endowment, said in a post on X that it was too early to assess if the front line was collapsing, Russia is focused on expanding the breach of the front line into a corridor to support its ground forces, Bieleskov said. The strategy avoids direct assaults on heavily fortified urban centers, instead pushing through open terrain where Ukraine's troop shortages and large settlements make defense harder. If successful, such a move could bypass Russia's need to storm Kostiantynivka — once a city of over 67,000 people and now significantly ruined and on the verge of falling. That would complicate defending the region's last big cities of Sloviansk, Kramatorsk and Druzhkivka, posing a serious challenge for Ukraine's military. Cmdr. Serhii Filimonov of the 'Da Vinci Wolves' battalion of the 59th brigade, warned that Kostiantynivka could fall without a fight if Russia severs supply routes. With few major roads, maintaining logistics for the large number of Ukrainian forces in the area would become 'extremely difficult,' Filimonov said. Advertisement Turning to the summit, Filimonov decried what he described as ongoing Russian killings and atrocities. 'And then the civilized world comes to them and says, 'Fine, let's make a deal.' That's not how it should be done,' he said. Associated Press reporters Vasilisa Stepanenko, Evgeniy Maloletka and Dmytro Zhyhinas in the Donetsk region and Volodymyr Yurchuk and Alex Babenko in Kyiv, Ukraine, contributed.
CNBC
8 minutes ago
- CNBC
Nothing is off the table as Trump and Putin set to meet
As Russian President Vladimir Putin holds face-to-face talks with White House leader Donald Trump on Friday, Ukraine — and the world — will be watching with baited breath. The state leaders are set to begin their summit at 11:30 a.m. local time (3.30 p.m. ET) at the Elmendorf Richardson military base in Anchorage, Alaska. There will then be a working lunch for both delegations, before the presidents hold a joint press conference to summarize their talks. The presser will undoubtedly be one of the most closely watched events of this year, revealing just how near — or far — is the end of the war in Ukraine that has spanned more than three and a half years. "Trump wants to exhaust all options to have a peaceful end to war," the White House stated on the eve of the Alaska summit. It remains to be seen whether those "options" will ultimately be good or bad for Ukraine. Not only is a ceasefire at stake — if Trump can persuade Putin to agree to one — but so are Ukraine's territorial integrity, Europe's security, Russia's economy and geopolitical alliances. Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who has a checkered relationship with Trump and was not invited to the Friday event, will be nervous as the talks get underway. Both he and his European allies fear the U.S. leader could capitulate to skilled negotiator Putin's likely demands for Moscow to retain occupied Ukrainian territory and cut short Ukraine's NATO membership aspirations, in return for halting its military offensive. Moscow has released more details about the summit than the White House, which only this week confirmed that the presidents' talks would be a "one-on-one" meeting. The Kremlin echoed that view, stating that Trump and Putin will meet "in a tete-a-tete format" behind closed doors with translators in tow, "naturally," according to Putin's aide on foreign affairs, Yuri Ushakov. "Considering that very important topics of a sensitive nature will be discussed, the list of participants in the negotiations is not big," Ushakov added, in comments translated by NBC News. Russia's delegation includes only a few members of Putin's inner circle, with Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, Defense Minister Andrei Belousov, Finance Minister Anton Siluanov and Kirill Dmitriev, Russia's investment and trade envoy, as well as Ushakov. The presidential aide commented that "it is obvious to everyone that the central topic will be the settlement of the Ukrainian crisis," including the "broader tasks of ensuring peace and security," as well as pressing international and regional issues. Signaling that Russia will be looking to extol the economic benefits of a rapprochement with the U.S., Ushakov added that "an exchange of views is expected regarding the further development of bilateral cooperation, including in the trade and economic area," noting that "this cooperation has enormous and, unfortunately, untapped potential."
