In 2022, the Senate unanimously passed a resolution condemning President Vladimir Putin of Russia as a war criminal. Yet President Trump this week appears poised to reward Putin for his invasion of Ukraine and the slaughter and rape of Ukrainian civilians and the trafficking of Ukrainian children that followed.
We all get a bit dizzy watching Trump’s pirouettes on the war in Ukraine: Just recently, he was denouncing Russia for its “disgusting” attacks on Ukraine, declaring that “we’re going to put sanctions” on Russia. He seemed to understand that Putin was the obstacle to ending the war. “He wants to obviously, probably, keep the war going,” Trump had told reporters a couple of days earlier. And he had set last Friday as his deadline for Putin to agree to a cease-fire.
Then as the deadline arrived, Trump caved. Instead of imposing tough sanctions, he announced a summit meeting with Putin and suggested that Ukraine would have to give up territory to reach a deal.
A summit with Putin isn’t necessarily a bad idea, and Trump’s genuine involvement in ending the war would be welcome. It’s likewise fair for Trump to press each side to compromise, and many Ukrainians seem ready to make concessions: More than two-thirds said in a Gallup poll that they favor a speedy negotiated end to the war, rather than fighting on until victory. (Another poll shows, however, reluctance to give up territory.)
But the way the Trump/Putin summit scheduled for Friday is coming together is raising alarms worldwide because it may be setting the stage not for an actual settlement but for craven capitulation.
For starters, the summit is a political gift to Putin, and a capable negotiator should be able to extract something from Russia for such a gift. It was unwise to hold the summit in Alaska — which some Russians still covet, even though Czar Alexander II sold the territory to the United States in 1867, for 2 cents an acre. The summit’s location confers legitimacy to Putin while subtly reinforcing the notion he clearly prefers, that national borders are flexible.
It’s particularly offensive that Trump and Putin will presumably discuss how to carve Ukraine up without its president, Volodymyr Zelensky, even invited to the discussion. As the saying goes, those who aren’t at the table are on the menu.
Trump is talking about “swapping” land, which seems to mean that Ukraine would be called upon to surrender territory to Russia, glossing over the issue of the security guarantees Ukraine needs. This would constitute a capitulation to an invader, a reward for aggression and a dangerous message to China that seizing territory will pay off.
“I make deals,” Trump boasted at a Monday news conference, but history does not always celebrate deals for the sake of deals.
“If Trump wants to hand Alaska or parts of it back” to Russia, “I guess he can do that,” posted Carl Bildt, the former Swedish prime minister. “But he has no right whatsoever to trade away the territory of any other nation. None.”
The Trump administration sometimes eerily reflects Kremlin talking points, which may be because Trump has a fundamental misunderstanding of the dynamic: He clearly believes we have done favors for Ukraine, when in fact it is Ukraine that at huge cost is advancing American interests as well as values.
Since 2022, the State Department reported in March, we have provided about $67 billion in military assistance to Ukraine (compared to a military budget that now reaches $1 trillion annually). That modest share has helped devastate Russia’s army and helped protect our NATO allies, while also giving us invaluable insights into drone warfare.
Moreover, one of the nightmare scenarios in the coming years would be a war pitting us against China. Today, we try to deter China’s aggression with aircraft carriers and bases in the Pacific, but my guess is that what deters its president, Xi Jinping, even more is the sight of Russia being pummeled militarily and economically since it invaded Ukraine.
The more Russia suffers, the less likely China is to move on Taiwan. Conversely, if Trump rewards Russia by lifting sanctions and allowing Moscow to swallow lands it invaded, that will be more reason for Xi to conclude that it may be worth it to take a bite out of Taiwan — and there will be greater risk of another world war.
According to the BBC, Izvestia, a leading Russian newspaper, has already declared that in Alaska, Russia is “unlikely to cede ground,” assessing that “most likely, stopping the conflict on Russia’s terms will be on the table.”
That’s what we should all be afraid of: a catastrophic update of Neville Chamberlain fecklessly yielding to Adolf Hitler in 1938, delusional that he had secured “peace for our time.”
My Armenian and Polish paternal grandparents were married in Lviv, in what is now western Ukraine, in February 1914, in an optimistic age. But bungled policies led within months to World War I and eventually to World War II; my grandparents’ and their children’s entire worlds were overturned, and that’s why I’m a refugee’s son in America. Those are the stakes: If we don’t get our foreign policy right here, there’s a risk of another round of cataclysm.
Ukrainians understand this, which is why they have been heroic in a way that should inspire us. I think of Alla Kuznietsova, whom I met in 2022 in Izium, Ukraine, her hometown. Izium was occupied, and she spied on Russian troops and was arrested. She described how Russian forces stripped her naked, beat her with cables and raped her. She could hear her husband’s screams as he was flogged nearby.
But Kuznietsova ran the local gas company, and without her the pipes stopped working. So the Russians grumpily agreed to free her to get the gas flowing again, and then she refused to leave her cell unless her husband was freed as well — together they escaped Russian-controlled areas and made their way to free Ukraine.
This extraordinary woman left me with a plea that I hope Trump will contemplate during his meeting with Putin.
“We are grateful to Americans,” she said. “But we just ask, please don’t leave us halfway. Don’t leave us alone.”
The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: [email protected].
Follow the New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Bluesky, WhatsApp and Threads.
Nicholas Kristof became a columnist for The Times Opinion desk in 2001 and has won two Pulitzer Prizes. His new memoir is “Chasing Hope: A Reporter’s Life.” @NickKristof
The post Mr. President, Stop Coddling Putin appeared first on New York Times.
