The Kremlin’s propaganda machine has told Russians for years that victory in Ukraine is “existential.” With that in mind, President Vladimir Putin will attend Friday’s summit with President Donald Trump in Alaska to dissuade him from supporting Ukraine and thereby decide the country’s fate off the battlefield.
The situation on the front is dire: Russia has advanced swiftly in the Donbas region. This week, 100,000 Russian troops advanced to the strategically important Kramatorsk-Dobropillia road in the Donetsk region. Just on Wednesday night, there were 56 engagements on the 700-mile-long front. Ukrainians are severely outnumbered and attacked by Russia’s seemingly endless supply of drones. The war’s effects on Ukraine are terrifying: More than 6 million Ukrainians are refugees, and more than 40,000 civilians have been killed, including more than 2,500 children, according to a United Nations report.
The Daily Beast asked Ukrainian politicians, members of the media, and business leaders how Putin will play his cards.
“Ukrainian intelligence has told President Zelensky that Trump and Putin have agreed to end the war. … It seems that Trump is in a hurry to get the deal done,” the editor-in-chief of Ukrainska Pravda, Sevgil Musayeva, told The Daily Beast. “And then Putin and Trump will proceed to talk about their joint economic projects.”
Ukrainian analysts see Putin’s main goal as bringing an end to economic sanctions against the country that were imposed on its financial, energy, and military sectors when Russia first invaded Ukraine in 2022. Cancelling sanctions would mean that Putin has been right ever since the annexation of Crimea in 2014, and the West was wrong to punish Russia.
“They will talk of ‘complete sovereignty’ of power,” one of Ukraine’s most popular political bloggers, Ivan Yakovina, wrote on Facebook on Thursday. Putin and aides could even see an opening to ask for protection from “criminal prosecutions of the Russian elite as well as public criticism in Western media.”
Putin will likely try to undermine Ukraine’s claim to sovereignty by noting its historical ties to Russia. In an essay titled “On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians” and published before the 2022 invasion, Putin claimed Ukraine is part of “historical Russia.” “Ukraine is not just a neighbouring country for us,” he wrote. “It is an inalienable part of our own history, culture, and spiritual space.”
According to Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, “Putin will bring some ‘historical materials’ to show that Ukraine is ‘an artificial state.’”
“To Putin, diplomacy and talks are a continuation of the military campaign. He will manipulate historical facts to claim Ukraine never existed. He will claim Russia is winning and Ukraine is doomed and should capitulate,” said Maria Ionova, a member of the Ukrainian Parliament. “The key point is that Putin is a manipulator, and we believe that Trump knows it very well.”
“Putin will press hard the idea that the struggle of the Ukrainian people and of Zelensky is meaningless, that Russia has total advantage on the front, and the only reason it’s not moving faster is because Russia respects Trump and the agreements with him,” added Yaroslav Yurchyshyn, another member of the Ukrainian Parliament.
Observers in Ukraine say Putin will also emphasize the cost of the war to American taxpayers. According to the Council of Foreign Relations, the United States has given $175 billion in aid to Ukraine in addition to extending the country a $20 billion loan in 2024. In a now-infamous meeting between Trump, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, and Vice President JD Vance in March, Trump told Zelensky, “You have to be thankful. You don’t have the cards.”
“Putin’s goal is to manipulate Trump, emphasizing that this war is being fought at the expense of Americans,” Yurchychyn said.
Pavlo Kukhta, Ukraine’s former deputy minister of economic development, trade, and agriculture, noted that the conflict has indeed made the country heavily dependent on foreign aid.
“The border has been shut for men for more than three and a half years, people cannot travel, and the state has shut its capital accounts,” Kukhta said. “So yes, in fact, both Ukraine’s economy and its war efforts are sustained by international support.”
Observers who spoke with the Daily Beast also expect Putin to accuse Zelensky of corruption. A law passed earlier this week in Ukraine brought two anti-corruption bodies—Ukraine’s National Anti-Corruption Bureau and Specialised Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office—under the purview of the prosecutor general, whom the president appoints. Ukrainian security forces also arrested members of the agencies for alleged ties to Russia. After widespread protests, Zelensky reversed course, drafting legislation to restore their independence.
“Putin is guaranteed to talk with Trump about Zelensky’s corruption,” Yurchyshyn said. “The cynicism of these accusations is all the more understandable given that the Russian regime is far more corrupt.”
Former presidential spokeswoman Iulia Mendel stressed that Putin has his own agenda.
“I am happy that somebody managed to pull Putin out of his bunker and put him at Trump’s table for talks,” Mendel told The Daily Beast. “Of course, I understand that this agreement will be preliminary, but it’s obvious that Putin would never fly to the United States if he did not have his personal interest in talks.”
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