How Disastrous Was the Trump-Putin Meeting?

The goal of US President Donald Trump in an interview with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska was to secure the ceasefire on Russia, Ukraine. Putin prepared him on the ceasefire and carried it instead to accept the “understanding” that distinguishes Russia remarkably. KYIV will take the ground to pay just to start a comprehensive settlement negotiations and leave Russian forces much better if the conversations collapsed.

The more we know this meeting, the more disastrous.

The goal of US President Donald Trump in an interview with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska was to secure the ceasefire on Russia, Ukraine. Putin prepared him on the ceasefire and carried it instead to accept the “understanding” that distinguishes Russia remarkably. KYIV will take the ground to pay just to start a comprehensive settlement negotiations and leave Russian forces much better if the conversations collapsed.

The more we know this meeting, the more disastrous.

After the invasion of Russia February 2022 He failed to arrest Kyiv, who turned their Russians to focus them into the Luhansk and Donetsk regions. After three and a half years, an important part of Donetsk is still stubbornly in the hands of Ukrainian.

With grinding gains during the past two years, Russia has occupied about 19 percent of Ukraine, much less than the highly 2022 high water mark of more than 25 percent. The Russians paid a terrible price for this, with nearly a million victims – more than the double Ukrainian losses.

Trump began his attempt to mediate a settlement in early 2025. Washington suggested a 30 -day year in March. Before Kiev. Russia did not, and agreed to just a partial stop. In subsequent months, Trump suggested that misery grow with Putin and set multiple deadlines for change in the Moscow approach. Putin hit him along. The deadlines passed without amendment to Russian policy. Every time, Trump did nothing.

Trump set his deadline on August 8. Many believed that he could finally lose patience and impose sanctions on Moscow. Instead, he announced that he would meet Putin in Alaska.

After talking to Ukrainian President Folodimir Zellinski and European leaders on August 13, in the period leading up to the summit, Trump excluded the conditions for negotiations such as land bodies and setting the goal of the ceasefire as a basis for negotiation. The promise of “severe consequences” if Putin does not agree. Air Force One has reaffirmed this goal on Air Force One on his way to Alaska. Trump also suggested that the meeting be warm up, with the main event a second summit that could include Zelinsky.

August 15 instead turned into a very good day for Putin. He obtained a warm red carpet from Trump at his first meeting with a major Western leader since early 2022. Behind closed doors, Putin rejected Trump’s suggestion for a ceasefire.

At that point, Trump should say, “I am sorry to hear that, Vladimir. Let me tell you the measures that I would take.” Ideally, they would exceed definitions and secondary penalties. Trump could say that he would ask congress to obtain $ 30 billion on weapons for Ukraine and would pressure the seizure of the assets of the Russian frozen central bank, which was held abroad ($ 300 billion) for a Ukraine fund for use in reconstruction and weapons purchase.

However, he did not. Instead, Trump fell off the ceasefire proposal. He did not raise the idea of a triple meeting, including Zelinski. Instead, what Putin described as an understanding of his short journalistic appearance after the expression. Trump spoke in positive terms about understanding while allowing it was not yet a deal.

In his subsequent conversation with Sean Hanity, Trump implicitly admitted an incomplete understanding and put responsibility for Kiev: “Now, it is really related to President Zelinski to accomplish him. I would also like to say European countries, they have to get a little involved, but it is up to President Zelinski.” That align him with Putin. At their press conference, the Russian President expressed the expectation that Ukrainian and European leaders will not “try to disrupt the emerging progress.”

The next morning, Trump tried to justify his failure to secure the ceasefire. In fact, his social position claimed that going to the “Peace Agreement” was a more interesting goal, as the stopping of fire collapses.

In fact, Trump played by Putin. According to the proposed understanding, which Trump supported in a phone call to European leaders, Ukraine will have to withdraw its forces from Luhansk and Donetsk, the lands of the Russian army who tried and failed to commit to March 2022, and agree to freeze the confrontation line in two other regions, Jacon and Zaborisashia – all of this just because of the move to negotiate resettlement.

In any negotiations, Moscow is certainly insisting that Ukraine receives all Jeuceon and Zaburisvia. In September 2022, Russia included these two regions, as well as Luhansk and Donetsk (at the head of the Crimea, in 2014). Other conditions of understanding are said to include lifting some US sanctions on Russia and the international recognition of the Crimea as a Russian, which the US government said during the first period of Trump’s state that it will not do so.

This approach will put Kyiv in a very risky position. It crosses the main Ukrainian red lines, such as not to waive unauthorized lands, not the international recognition of the occupied regions Cross. Moreover, it seems that Putin believes that the Russian army will eventually prevail in the battlefield. At any time he can announce that negotiation has failed and resuming hostile actions. After it acquired both Donetsk, the Russian army will not have to confront the strongly fortified defensive lines that have given its progress long.

A single positive development has been reported on our willingness to join some European countries in granting Ukraine a “strong” security guarantee. Details lack, unlike that the warranty will not come from NATO.

The abandonment of lands will be a terrible painful step for Ukraine, but KYIV has shown signs that it may accept the loss of some lands. The Ukrainian government agreed to the ceasefire, and Zelinski suggested that it may agree not to use military force to try to restore the lost lands. However, it is difficult to see Kiev agreeing to these points without IronClad security guarantee to ensure that Russia does not launch another invasion at a future point. If this is true, the United States and some European countries are prepared for the commitment of forces to defend Ukraine can prove a major development, but Zelinski will definitely want to hear the details.

What the Ukrainians will not do is to agree to waive the lands, especially the lands that the Russians have never occupied, only to start negotiating – especially when Moscow can end negotiation at any time and return to war.

The main European leaders His reaction to Trump’s interrogation of the Alaska meeting was on Saturday. They issued a statement specifying the principles of the settlement, and many of them contradict it. While European officials have reduced their public statements and expressed caution, British, Germany, France, Italy, Finland, NATO and the European Commission will join Zelinski at his meeting on Monday with Trump. This undoubtedly reflects their concern about understanding and how it can harm Ukraine and weaken European security.

Their decision to join Zelinski Hakim. First, any settlement will have some influence on European security. Second, there is strength in the numbers. Third, their presence will reduce the possibility of repeating the oval office for the month of February from Zelensky.

Zelinski and his European colleagues face a difficult challenge. They have to make diplomatic suggestions for Trump from a position that he does not seem to understand will be bad for Ukraine, bad for Europe, and bad for American interests. They should do this without an explosion that can disrupt relations between the United States of Ukrainian and the Europeans-all of Putin and the Kremlin.