U.S. President Donald Trump is set to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska on Friday to discuss a possible cease-fire in Ukraine. There is a great deal of skepticism about what can actually be accomplished at the Alaska summit, particularly given that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has not been invited. Even Trump on Monday played down expectations for the summit, referring to it as a “feel-out meeting,” which suggests that he’s not expecting to emerge from the meeting with a concrete agreement.
“We’re going to see what the parameters are, and then I’m going to call up President Zelensky and the European leaders right after the meeting,” Trump said during a White House press conference. “I’m not going to make a deal. It’s not up to me to make a deal.”
Trump said he expects to have “constructive conversations” with the Russian leader on Friday. “I think it’ll be good, but it might be bad,” Trump said.
Meanwhile, Kyiv and its supporters are worried that Putin could use the meeting to push Trump toward supporting a deal that’s advantageous to Russia. Zelensky, who’s had a rocky relationship with Trump for years, warned in an address on Sunday night that Putin wants to “deceive America.” The Ukrainian leader also said on Monday that Putin will portray a meeting with “America as his personal victory and then continue acting exactly as before,” adding that he’s seen no signs that the Russian leader is serious about pursuing peace.
John Foreman, a former U.K. defense attaché to Moscow and Kyiv, told Foreign Policy that since news broke of the planned Trump-Putin meeting, he’s been “deeply concerned” regarding “the confusion about what exact peace terms are being considered; Trump’s rush to get a deal to burnish his ‘peacemaker’ credentials; his deference toward Putin; and his apparent willingness to do a deal over Ukraine’s head à la Munich.”
Foreman was referencing the infamous 1938 Munich Agreement, which involved Western powers allowing Nazi Germany to annex the Sudetenland from Czechoslovakia. The leaders involved, such as British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, were seen as betraying Czechoslovakia to appease Adolf Hitler.
Trump has been vague about exactly what a peace deal between Ukraine and Russia should entail. But on Monday, he once again discussed the possibility of a deal involving “land swapping” between Ukraine and Russia while also stating that he would “try to get some of that territory back for Ukraine.”
Russia occupies roughly one-fifth of Ukraine’s territory at the moment. But Russia has also reclaimed virtually all of the territory in its Kursk region that was occupied by Ukraine following a surprise incursion last summer, making it unclear what Kyiv would have to offer in any deal encompassing a land swap. Zelensky has also rejected ceding territory to Russia as part of a peace agreement.
“The whole thing appears half-cocked, ill-prepared, and confused, probably due to the involvement of [U.S. special envoy Steve] Witkoff and his incompetent, blundering, credulous approach to dealing with the Russians, who have played him like a fiddle,” said Foreman, who is now an associate fellow at Chatham House and the New East Strategies Centre. “Meanwhile, Putin has conceded nothing, has avoided sanctions, and will be delighted to be back at the top table.”
The summit is set to occur a week after the expiration of a deadline that Trump imposed for Russia to end the war or face new, crippling sanctions. While Trump announced last Wednesday that he was raising tariffs on imports from India to 50 percent—a move meant to penalize the country for purchasing Russian oil—he was also expected to follow up with further economic penalties last Friday. Instead, Trump announced that he would meet with Putin.
Trump’s announcement came after Witkoff met with Putin last week in his fifth trip to Moscow as U.S. special envoy. Critics of Witkoff, who had no previous diplomatic or government experience before being appointed special envoy, have repeatedly contended that he’s out of his depth in negotiations over issues such as the war in Ukraine.
Witkoff, who has been accused of echoing Kremlin talking points about the war, has faced renewed criticism in recent days amid reports he caused confusion among European diplomats after possibly misunderstanding Putin’s position during their meeting.
Given Trump’s unpredictable nature and the circumstances surrounding the summit, Kyiv’s European allies appear anxious about what comes next.
“We are convinced that only an approach that combines active diplomacy, support to Ukraine and pressure on the Russian Federation to end their illegal war can succeed,” European leaders said in a joint statement on Sunday.
Trump has also been invited to an emergency virtual session with European leaders, including Zelensky, on Wednesday ahead of his negotiations with Putin.
The summit will mark Putin’s first visit to the United States since 2015 and his first visit to the country since 2007 that has come outside of the context of the United Nations General Assembly in New York.
The Russian leader is unable to travel to many countries around the world because of a warrant for his arrest issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for allegedly committing war crimes in Ukraine. Countries that are party to the ICC are required to arrest him should he step foot on their national soil. The United States is not a party to the ICC, meaning it is not required to arrest Putin if he comes to the country; however, it’s still highly controversial that Trump has invited Putin for a meeting on U.S. soil—and in a state that was once part of the Russian Empire.
Trump mistakenly said twice on Monday that he was “going to Russia” to see Putin on Friday, though in the same press conference he also applauded the Russian leader for his willingness to come to the United States for the meeting.
“Such statements do not inspire confidence that Trump will be ready to negotiate effectively with Putin,” former U.S. Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul said in a post on X regarding Trump’s comments.
The meeting is also risky for Trump politically given how frequently he’s pledged to end this war—portraying himself as the only leader capable of facilitating a deal.
“The stakes are extremely high,” Foreman said.
On the campaign trail, Trump promised to end the war in Ukraine within “24 hours” of reentering the White House. Though Trump later suggested he was joking or being “sarcastic” about that abbreviated timeline, he’s continued to push for a quick end to the war. In the process, Trump has repeatedly expressed frustration with both Zelensky and Putin over the ongoing fighting, often misrepresenting or outright ignoring the fact that Russia launched an unprovoked invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
While much of Trump’s impatience over the lack of progress on a cease-fire has been aimed at Putin more recently, he also continued to criticize Zelensky on Monday. Trump said he “gets along” with Zelensky but disagrees with “what he’s done,” adding that “this is a war that should have never happened.”
Trump’s tendency to falsely blame Zelensky for starting the war or for failing to stop it is precisely the type of behavior that has raised concern among some experts about his meeting with Putin.
“I worry that his [Trump’s] shared authoritarian instincts with Putin, lack of clarity in his mind about his own position, and wish to be seen as a big man deciding the fate of nations at the stroke of a Sharpie will lead to him agreeing to terms which are wholly unacceptable,” Foreman said. He added that also he’s worried that Trump would then attempt to ram a bad agreement down Ukraine’s and Europe’s throats while leaving Russia “free to reattack in due course after a period of rebuilding, having left Ukraine defenseless and weakened.”
If Trump comes out of the summit empty-handed, or embraces a framework for a deal that calls for Ukraine to give up territory, then he could be seen as a president who failed to stand up to a dictator.
“He must also understand that—for his own legacy—he can’t sell Ukraine out,” Foreman said, warning of the potential for Trump to be compared to Chamberlain if he goes this route. “If Trump doesn’t get a cease-fire, the summit will fail. That must be his red line,” Foreman added.
Foreman said he’ll be the first to salute Trump if he “pulls something out of the bag or brings Russia and Ukraine closer to a deal,” and he credited the U.S. president for “expending considerable political capital” on reaching a peace agreement. But Foreman also said that Trump is a “terrible summiteer,” noting that his 2018 summits with Putin and, separately, “achieved nothing.”
But some experts are cautiously optimistic about the chances for the Alaska meeting to help lay the groundwork for a peace deal.
“The meeting has the potential to advance a decent enough deal if, but only if it does not give Putin what he wants, which is some Ukrainian territory with the possibility of taking more later. A deal could recognize the de facto existing lines and even adjust them. But it should avoid de jure recognition of Russian annexation of Ukrainian territory,” Daniel Fried, a former U.S. ambassador to Poland who is now a distinguished fellow at the Atlantic Council, told Foreign Policy.
Fried said any agreement must also not restrict Ukraine’s ability to defend itself, receive arms from allies, or ask foreign forces to enter its territory—and any restrictions that Putin wants must be equally imposed on Russia.
“The U.S. has leverage—potential to damage Russia’s economy and the ability to keep arming Ukraine,” Fried said. “We should use our strength to get a good deal for the U.S., Ukraine, Europe, and the free world—not let our strength leak away.”
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