The stakes are high for Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin as it’s been confirmed the pair will meet in Alaska next week to discuss ending the war in Ukraine.
The US President and Russian President will sit down in the US’ most northern state – which has been chosen due to its close proximity to Russia – on August 15.
Addressing reporters at the White House yesterday, Trump suggested an agreement would involve some exchange of land between Ukraine and Russia.
‘There’ll be some swapping of territories to the betterment of both,’ the Republican president said. A spokesperson for the Kremlin has confirmed the summit.
But Volodymyr Zelensky said this morning that Ukraine could not violate its constitution on the territorial issues, adding that ‘Ukrainians will not gift their land to the occupiers.’
In a video address to the nation posted on his Telegram channel on Saturday, Zelensky said that any decisions without Ukraine would be decisions against peace.
‘They will not achieve anything. These are stillborn decisions. They are unworkable decisions. And we all need real and genuine peace,’ Zelensky said.
Rumours swirled earlier this week that Zelensky could join the summit, and one senior White House official briefed reporters last night that he could still be involved in the discussions in some way.
If that long-awaited moment does arrive, one of the leaders will come to the table at a significant disadvantage, according to British Foreign Policy Group think tank director Evie Aspinall.
Aspinall said Trump is ‘feeling relatively confident about the situation’ after weeks of trumpeting his role in stopping conflicts between Israel and Iran, India and Pakistan, and several other regions around the world.
She told Metro: ‘I think in his mind, he’s managed to bring Putin to the table, and he’s going to use it as an opportunity to really cement himself as this deal maker and as someone that is able to secure peace in the world.
‘And so what he wants, really, is a ceasefire. He wants an end to the war in Ukraine. His intent is fairly straightforward. He wants to see the war end, and he wants to be seen as the man that makes that possible.’
Ultimately, the summit is ‘as much as anything, an image thing’ for Trump, she argued, as it would also mean disentangling the US from a global conflict.
Putin, meanwhile, is ‘making huge progress militarily’ in Ukraine and is able to use the meeting to secure two big objectives – demonstrating to Trump he is ‘reasonable’ enough to negotiate, and buying time on the battlefield.
Aspinall said: ‘Putin will be building up his resources so that he is in the best position possible for when a ceasefire or full negotiation then happens.
‘He wants to use this as an opportunity to show that he’s on Trump’s side.’
The US President may have appeared to sharpen his stance against his Russian counterpart in recent weeks, notably hitting India with punitive tariffs for buying Russia’s oil.
But Aspinall explained it’s likely a shrewd move from Putin to sit down for talks at this point in time.
She said: ‘I think Putin is playing quite well for the Russians. By coming to negotiating table, he’s managed to get Trump to wait, step back from the threats of sanctions for now.
‘What he’ll be hoping is that he presents himself as reasonable in these meetings, and then Trump doesn’t go on with the sanctions that are supposed to hit imminently.’
For Zelensky, the summit will be much more of a high-wire act with far more risky results.
Aspinall said: ‘I think there is possible progress. The problem with the progress is it will be on Putin’s terms, rather than Zelensky’s terms.
‘I think there is a world in which you see Trump and Putin come out saying, “This is a deal that would work,” and then you have Europe and Ukraine pushing back very heavily on that, and a negotiation over that deal.’
The Ukrainian President’s best bet might be to challenge Putin’s position as the ‘reasonable actor’ in the negotiations by pressing hard on the Russian leader’s red lines – such as agreeing to Ukraine joining Nato.
This could ‘push Putin into a corner’, suggested Aspinall, which might be Zelensky’s best chance at leverage.
But she was clear Ukraine has more to lose in a likely deal.
Russia could be flexible on territory swaps, and offer them in exchange for Putin’s bigger prizes: blocking Ukrainian Nato membership, shrinking the size of its military, and forcing elections that would ‘inevitably be biased by Russian disinformation’.
Aspinall said: ‘the Territory part is the part that they will probably be softer on, as a way for Trump to come out and say, we’re not giving Putin everything. We’ve got the territory back, for example.
‘But Putin can sell it as you know, we no longer have an aggressor on our doorstep. We have a supporter and ally of Russia on our doorstep.’
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