Friday Briefing: Ukraine's Fate
Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin meet today in Alaska to discuss the future of the war in Ukraine. Not present: anyone from Ukraine.
The facts are not in flux. The battle lines have barely shifted over the last few years. The objectives of Russia and Ukraine haven't changed.
And yet anything could happen — because nobody knows what Trump will do. In the last seven months, his positions on the war have swung wildly. He humiliated Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukraine's leader, in the Oval Office, and then criticized Putin's 'bullshit' and threatened sanctions on Moscow.
Last week, Trump abruptly gave the Russian president a long-desired one-on-one meeting — and left Zelensky off the guest list. Ukraine and its European allies now fear that Trump will cut a deal with Putin.
Here are some ways to understand the war:
Who's winning? After Ukraine decimated Russia's underequipped forces in 2022, Putin re-engineered his country to serve the war. Russia has paid huge sums to recruit new soldiers and invested heavily in Iranian-designed drones. Putin has been willing to sacrifice his own soldiers, incurring about twice as many casualties as Ukraine. This multimedia story by Times journalists in Europe shows how the grinding war of attrition now favors Russia.
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