US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin will travel to Friday’s summit in the US state of Alaska with contrasting priorities as they prepare for talks on ending Russia’s war in Ukraine. Putin has been consistent on his desire to win Ukrainian territory, while Trump has made no secret of his desire to act as a global peacemaker. But both men may also sense other opportunities, such as diplomatic rehabilitation on the world stage on the part of Putin.
The first thing Putin wants from this summit is something he’s already been given, recognition from the world’s most powerful country, America, that Western efforts to isolate the Kremlin leader have failed. The fact that this high-level meeting is happening is testament to that, as is the joint press conference that the Kremlin has announced.
Putin wants victory, he’s been insisting that Russia keep all the land it has seized and occupied in four Ukrainian regions and that Kyiv withdraw from the parts of those regions still under Ukrainian control. For Ukraine this is unacceptable, Ukrainians will not give their land to the occupier, says the country’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky.
Trump famously promised during his 2024 presidential campaign that ending the Ukraine war would be easy and that he could do it in a matter of days. That promise has hung over the American president’s efforts to resolve the conflict, as he has alternated between frustration with the Ukrainians and the Russians since returning to the White House in January.
He harangued Zelensky at a dramatic White House meeting in February, and later temporarily suspended military aid and intelligence sharing with the war-torn nation. In recent months, he’s been more critical of Putin’s intransigence and willingness to attack civilian targets, setting a series of deadlines for new sanctions on the Russians and other nations that do business with them.
Now he’s hosting the Russian president on American soil and talking about land-swapping, which Ukraine fears may consist of land concessions in exchange for peace. So, any discussion about what Trump wants during his Friday talks with Putin is muddied by the president’s vacillating statements and actions.
This week, Trump has made a concerted effort to lower the expectations for this meeting – perhaps a tacit acknowledgement of the limited possibilities of a breakthrough with only one party in the war present. On Monday, he said the summit would be a feel-out meeting. He suggested that he would know if he could reach a deal with the Russian leader probably in the first two minutes.
I may leave and say good luck, and that’ll be the end, he added. I may say this is not going to be settled. On Tuesday, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt reinforced this message, calling the summit a listening session. But by midweek, he was once again talking up the prospects of a deal, saying that he thinks both Zelensky and Putin want peace.
With Trump, it’s often best to expect the unexpected. And Zelensky and European leaders spoke to him on Wednesday in an effort to ensure that he doesn’t strike a deal with Putin that Ukraine won’t – or can’t – accept. One thing has been clear practically all year, however: Trump would welcome the chance to be the man who ends the war.
In his inaugural address, he said he wanted his proudest legacy to be that of a peacemaker. It is no secret that he longs for the international recognition of a Nobel Peace Prize. In the Oval Office on Thursday, Trump boasted of all the global conflicts he feels he has successfully resolved since taking office in January. But when asked about the war in Ukraine, he offered a rare acknowledgement of the challenge he now faces.
I thought the easiest one would be this one, he said. It’s actually the most difficult. Trump is not one to get bogged down in details. But if there is an opportunity for him to claim that he has made progress toward peace during the talks in Anchorage, he will take it. Putin, always a savvy negotiator, may seek a way to let Trump do just that – on Russia’s terms, of course.
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