Latest news with #negotiatedsettlement
Bloomberg
4 days ago
- Politics
- Bloomberg
Putin Says Talks With Trump Were Constructive, Useful
Lisa Murkowski, an Alaska Republican who has occasionally broken with Trump, says Ukraine should be part of any next meeting and 'must be part of any negotiated settlement.' The Alaska summit between President Trump and President Putin concluded with a joint press conference and handshakes. While the press conference offered few details about their meeting, I'm cautiously optimistic about the signals that some level of progress was made. It was also… — Sen. Lisa Murkowski (@lisamurkowski) August 16, 2025
Reuters
4 days ago
- Politics
- Reuters
In Kyiv, disheartened Ukrainians wary ahead of Trump-Putin summit
KYIV, Aug 15 (Reuters) - As President Donald Trump prepared to meet his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in Alaska on Friday, Ukrainians were watching warily, fearful the U.S. leader could sell Kyiv out in his bid for a quick deal with Moscow. The American leader, who has set his sights on securing a truce in Russia's 3-1/2-year-old war in Ukraine, agreed last week to hold the first U.S.-Russian summit since 2021, abruptly ending Western attempts to isolate the Kremlin leader. Polls by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology show Ukrainians overwhelmingly want a negotiated settlement to end the fighting, but would also oppose any truce secured with crushing concessions. Half a dozen Ukrainians interviewed by Reuters on Kyiv's central square said they were not optimistic ahead of the summit. Some said they worried that Kyiv's interests would not be taken into account. "I don't trust Trump. He says one thing today, another tomorrow. The day after tomorrow – another thing, in five days – something else. Therefore, I have no faith in him," 47-year-old accountant Anna Sherstniova said. Tetiana Harkavenko, a 65-year-old cleaner, predicted the fighting would rage on after the summit. "Nothing good will happen there, because war is war, it will not end. The territories - we're not going to give anything to anyone." Trump has said any deal to end the war will require territorial concessions by both sides, and that he would like to see a follow-up meeting between Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy. Liubomyr Yurtsiv, 26, a technician, said he expected little would change after the meeting. "Most likely, the outcome won't be positive," he added. Valerii Kucherenko, a 31-year-old war veteran, had a similarly pessimistic take, speaking to Reuters at the pizzeria he set up in the town of Bila Tserkva outside the capital. Kucherenko lost both his hands to injuries that he sustained while storming a Russian position on the eastern front in 2023. "I hope for peace on our terms, but we're all adults and understand it's not that simple. Putin and Trump may reach an agreement, but it will not be in our favour. This scenario will not suit us," he said. "We are Ukrainians, and we will defend our rights to the very end."
Free Malaysia Today
12-08-2025
- Politics
- Free Malaysia Today
Vance says US working to ‘schedule' Trump-Putin-Zelensky meeting
US vice president JD Vance said the negotiated settlement for Russia and Ukraine might not make everyone happy. (AP pic) WASHINGTON : The US is working to 'schedule' a meeting between Donald Trump and his Russian and Ukrainian counterparts, vice president JD Vance said Sunday, as Ukraine's European allies push for Kyiv's presence at the US-Russia summit in Alaska this week. 'One of the most important logjams is that Vladimir Putin said that he would never sit down with (Volodymyr) Zelensky, the head of Ukraine, and the president has now got that to change,' Vance said during an interview on the Fox News program 'Sunday Morning Futures.' 'We're at a point now where we're trying to figure out, frankly, scheduling and things like that around when these three leaders could sit down and discuss an end to this conflict,' Vance said when asked about his expectations for the Alaska summit on Aug 15. The vice president said the US was going to 'try to find some negotiated settlement that the Ukrainians and Russians can live with.' Vance added, 'It's not going to make anybody super happy, both the Russians and the Ukrainians probably at the end of the day are going to be unhappy with it.' The planned US-Russia summit in Alaska without Zelensky had raised concerns that a deal would require Kyiv to cede swaths of territory, which the EU has rejected. US Ambassador to Nato Matthew Whitaker suggested on CNN that Zelensky could attend the summit. He was asked whether Zelensky might join Trump and Putin on Friday. 'Yes, I certainly think it's possible,' he said. 'Certainly, there can't be a deal that everybody that's involved in it doesn't agree to. And, I mean, obviously, it's a high priority to get this war to end.' In a flurry of diplomacy, Zelensky held calls with 13 counterparts over three days, including Kyiv's main backers Germany, Britain and France. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said Sunday he hoped and assumed that Zelensky would attend the summit. Whitaker said the decision would ultimately be Trump's to make. 'If he thinks that that is the best scenario to invite Zelensky, then he will do that,' he said, adding that 'no decision has been made to this point.' Tens of thousands of people have been killed since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, with millions forced to flee their homes.
NHK
11-08-2025
- Politics
- NHK
Vance: Ceasefire agreement likely to leave both sides unhappy
US Vice President JD Vance says a ceasefire agreement between Russia and Ukraine is unlikely to satisfy either side. Vance made the remarks in an interview with Fox News aired on Sunday ahead of the upcoming meeting between US President Donald Trump and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in Alaska on Friday. Vance said that the Trump administration is "going to try to find some negotiated settlement that the Ukrainians and the Russians can live with, where they can live in relative peace, where the killing stops." He added: "It's not going to make anybody super happy. Both the Russians and the Ukrainians, probably, at the end of the day, are going to be unhappy with it." Vance also noted that Washington is working to schedule three-way talks between Trump, Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Asked whether he wants Putin to meet Zelenskyy before a meeting with Trump, Vance said that he did not think that would be very productive. He indicated that summit talks between Trump and Putin will take place before any other negotiations. Zelenskyy and European leaders are concerned that the US and Russian leaders may discuss territorial issues without any involvement by Ukraine.
Daily Mail
10-08-2025
- Politics
- Daily Mail
Trump and Putin's Alaskan summit looks like an old-fashioned territorial carve-up by great powers that rewards the strong and punishes the weak: PATRICK BISHOP
Donald Trump 's pretentions to be a world statesman whose name will resound down the ages is about to be brutally tested. On Friday he will sit down in Alaska with his exasperating frenemy Vladimir Putin for what has the potential to be one of the most significant leader-to-leader summits of recent history, up there with Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev's Geneva lakeside love-in 40 years ago which presaged the end of the Cold War. The meeting should give the clearest indication thus far of whether there is any realistic possibility of a negotiated settlement of the war in Ukraine any time soon. Also at stake are the reputations and ambitions of both men. Trump will want to prove that there is real weight to his claims to be a genius peacemaker whose wheeler-dealing approach to global politics succeeds where conventional diplomacy has failed. He is up against a negotiating partner who will be using all of his KGB-honed wiles to feign sincere desire for a settlement while conceding nothing that could undermine his bucket-list determination to restore at least some of Russia 's historic frontiers before he passes from the scene. Until now, relations between the two have defied easy analysis. Trump's feelings for 'Vladimir' see-saw between queasy expressions of affection to anger when he thinks he is being jerked around. Putin, meanwhile, has proved a master at stringing him along with flattery and flannel. On Friday their personal chemistry will interact in laboratory conditions. Whether the result is a breakthrough or a bodge-up, it will have profound implications for both men, as well as for Ukraine and the rest of the world. To a crucial extent, the result will depend on the personal motivations of the participants rather than considerations of national interest. Questions of international law, let alone morality, will play little or no part. Both men are obsessed with legacy. Putin is a nostalgic imperialist who wants to be remembered as the man who made Russia great again. He sincerely believes that the eastern provinces of Ukraine can only ever be Russian – a credo that recently revealed German foreign ministry files shows dates back to at least the early 1990s. Winning de facto recognition of Russian ownership of recent conquests, as well as Crimea, will be a minimum condition of any agreement. Trump's chief concern is himself. Having accumulated great wealth and enormous power, he now craves secular sainthood in the form of a Nobel Peace Prize. He is intensely irritated by the fact that the man he replaced in the White House in 2017 was awarded one within a year of becoming president, complaining last year: 'If I were named Obama I would have had [it] given to me in ten seconds.' Settling the Ukraine war – which he notoriously claimed on more than 50 occasions he would achieve within 24 hours of taking office – seemed a sure route to Nobel glory. When the reality proved more intractable he seemed to lose interest in Ukraine and in the spring seemed likely to walk away from the imbroglio. Success in bringing a swift end to the Israel-Iran clash in June has revived his hopes of taking his rightful place alongside Nobel laureates such as Mother Teresa and Nelson Mandela. Trump has been taking credit for 'solving' other conflicts involving India and Pakistan, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda, Cambodia and Thailand and also Armenia and Azerbaijan. Having shown no interest in these places before, this appears to be an exercise in burnishing his peacemaker credentials for the benefit of the five Norwegian worthies who make up the prize committee. Hunger for the accolade rather than any positive developments on the diplomatic front seem to be the main driver behind Trump's pursuit of a summit. Leaks from the recent meeting between Trump's special envoy Steve Witkoff and Putin suggest there has been no significant weakening of Russia's hardline positions. Moscow will insist on maintaining control of most of the territory seized in eastern Ukraine and could even demand that Kyiv hand over parts of Donetsk province that it has yet to capture. It will also be seeking a ban on Ukrainian membership of Nato and crippling restrictions on the future size of Ukraine's military, as well as a halt to Western weapons supplies. The noises coming from Washington suggest that none of this is off the table and that at least some of Russia's key demands are likely to be endorsed. On Friday, Trump blithely predicted that there 'will be some swapping of territories' in order for Moscow and Kyiv to reach an agreement, provoking strong protests from Ukraine's President Zelensky. But Ukraine's voice will count for little – Zelensky has not so far been invited to the talks – and nor will that of Britain, France and Germany, who have been reduced to anguished invocations of the sanctity of international borders. Inexplicably, Trump continues to treat Putin as an equal when in reality the US massively overmatches Russia in power and wealth. He has always had the ability to impose real pain on Moscow that would force Putin to sit down to proper negotiations. Despite some harsh words, threats of sanctions, Armageddon and military posturing – like recently sending nuclear submarines closer to Russia – there is no sign that he is about to do that now. Putin has little reason to give ground. Russian forces are slowly but steadily advancing on the battlefield, apparently capable of absorbing losses that would impress a First World War general. In prospect in Alaska is an old-fashioned, big-power territorial carve-up that rewards the strong and punishes the weak. Confronted by a Trump-Putin tag team agreed on the ingredients for a settlement, Zelensky would face a dreadful dilemma and whatever choice he made would hand a huge win to his enemies. Whether or not the deal involves ceding sovereignty of captured territory, officially accepting its at least temporary loss will give Putin a solid lodgement from which to pursue his aggression and usher in a future of perpetual insecurity for Ukraine. But if Zelensky rejects the offer, Trump's wrath is guaranteed and Kyiv is potentially left to fight on, supported only by a Europe that is in no position to fill the gap left by America's departure. Such an outcome would be more than a heavy blow to Ukraine. It would be a dark portent for all our futures. If Putin emerges from Friday's meeting with a deal he feels comfortable with, it will mark the start of a new age in which might is always right and tyrannical aggression goes unpunished. And Alaska 2025 will not be remembered alongside Geneva 1985. Instead, it will go down in history as another Munich 1938.
