Putin and Trump in Alaska, without Zelensky?
Russian President Vladimir Putin has managed to schedule the Alaska Summit with US President Donald Trump to discuss ending the war in Ukraine.
According to sources in the Trump administration, a trilateral meeting with Ukrainian President Volodimir Zelensky is not impossible, but it may cause Moscow to refuse.
The Alaska Summit comes at a time when Zelensky was gaining Trump's support after the disastrous conversation in the Oval Office earlier this year. What's more, the US president had joined the narrative condemning the Russian occupation and set Friday as the deadline for ending the war.
Putin was losing his only Western ally and, according to The New York Times, the only one who ‘might be willing to help him get away with his actions in Ukraine and achieve his long-standing goal of breaking the European security order.’
When US special envoy Steve Witkoff met with Vladimir Putin in the Kremlin, Putin indicated that he was willing to end the war in exchange for Ukrainian territories. This led to the Alaska Summit, where, according to Donald Trump, ‘there will be some exchange of territories for the good of both sides.’
According to Axios, envoy Witkoff explained that Putin would ‘freeze’ his advance in the Zaporizhia and Kherson regions if Kiev ceded Luhansk, Donetsk and Crimea.
There were initial statements indicating that Zelensky would also attend, but these were quickly denied by the Kremlin. However, a senior Trump official told NBC that the US president has not ruled out a trilateral meeting with the Ukrainian president, although he is focused on a bilateral meeting for the time being.
Nevertheless, according to CNN, certain sources claimed that ‘anything involving Zelensky would probably happen after the meeting between Trump and Putin.’ In other words, they do not see the three leaders sitting down at the same table.
Of course, the ‘exchange of territories’ that Trump said would take place at the Alaska summit caused unease in Europe, and especially in Ukraine. As a result, tensions between Washington and Kiev have returned.
Zelensky's response was that ceding territory to Russia is prohibited under the Ukrainian Constitution. ‘The path to peace for Ukraine must be determined together with Ukraine – this is fundamental,’ the leader insisted on his official Twitter account.
However, according to Al Ain, the Ukrainian elite and a large part of the population accept the establishment of Russian control in exchange for an end to the fighting. And according to The Guardian, politicians and the military agree that Kiev is already in a very critical situation that will force it to bow to Moscow.
He also added another post in which the Ukrainian president expressed his gratitude for the support of various European leaders for a just end to the war.
French President Emmanuel Macron, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and Finnish President Alexander Stubb signed a statement on the matter: ‘We reiterate that Russia's illegal and unjust invasion of Ukraine is a flagrant violation of the United Nations Charter, the Helsinki Final Act, the Budapest Memorandum and successive Russian commitments. We underline our unwavering commitment to Ukraine's sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity.’
According to The New York Times, most analysts believe that Putin's intentions go beyond negotiating territories. He has made it very clear that he does not want Ukraine to join NATO or have any kind of military power.
Sam Greene, professor of Russian politics at King's College London, explained that Putin's strategy includes driving a wedge between the United States and Europe: ‘If you got Trump to recognise Russia's claim to most of the territory it has taken, (...) you would open up a long-term rift between the US and Europe.’
This rift is in line with the course of weakening Europe that Trump has been pursuing since he came to power in January.
