U.S. President Donald Trump’s stated goal in meeting Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska was to secure a Russia-Ukraine cease-fire. Putin stiffed him on a cease-fire and got him to instead accept an “understanding” that strikingly advantages Russia. It would require Kyiv to pay with land just to start negotiations of an overall settlement and leave Russian forces far better positioned if talks broke down.
The more we learn about this meeting, the more disastrous it sounds.
After Russia’s February 2022 invasion failed to capture Kyiv, the Russians turned their focus to the Luhansk and Donetsk regions. Three and a half years later, a significant part of Donetsk remains stubbornly in Ukrainian hands.
With grinding gains of the past two years, Russia occupies about 19 percent of Ukraine, well below its 2022 high-water mark of more than 25 percent. The Russians have paid a horrible price for this, with nearly 1 million casualties—much more than double Ukrainian losses.
Trump began his bid to broker a settlement early in 2025. Washington proposed a general 30-day cease-fire in March. Kyiv accepted it. Russia did not, agreeing to just a partial cease-fire. In succeeding months, Trump suggested growing unhappiness with Putin and laid down multiple deadlines for change in Moscow’s approach. Putin strung him along. The deadlines passed with no adjustment in Russian policy. Each time, Trump did nothing.
Trump set his latest deadline to expire on Aug. 8. Many thought he might finally lose patience and impose penalties on Moscow. Instead, he announced he would meet with Putin in Alaska.
After speaking to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and European leaders on Aug. 13, in the lead-up to the summit, Trump ruled out negotiating terms such as land swaps and set the goal of a cease-fire as a basis for negotiation. He promised “severe consequences” if Putin did not agree. He reaffirmed that objective to journalists on Air Force One en route to Alaska. Trump also suggested the meeting would be a warmup, with the main event a second summit that could include Zelensky.
Aug. 15 instead turned out to be a very good day for Putin. He received a warm red-carpet welcome from Trump at his first meeting with a major Western leader since early 2022. Behind closed doors, Putin rejected Trump’s proposal for a cease-fire.
At that point, Trump should have said, “I’m sorry to hear that, Vladimir. Let me tell you the measures I will take.” Ideally, they would have gone well beyond tariffs and secondary sanctions. Trump could have said he would ask Congress for $30 billion for weapons for Ukraine and would press to seize Russia’s frozen Central Bank assets held abroad ($300 billion) for a fund for Ukraine to use for reconstruction and arms purchases.
However, he did not. Trump instead dropped the cease-fire proposal. He did not raise the idea of a trilateral meeting including Zelensky. He instead left with what Putin termed an understanding at their short post-meeting press appearance. Trump spoke in positive terms about the understanding while allowing that it was not yet a done deal.
In his subsequent conversation with Sean Hannity, Trump tacitly endorsed the unfinished understanding and put the onus on Kyiv: “Now, it’s really up to President Zelensky to get it done. And I would also say the European nations, they have to get involved a little bit, but it’s up to President Zelensky.” That aligned him with Putin; at their press conference, the Russian president expressed the expectation that Ukrainian and European leaders will not “attempt to disrupt the emerging progress.”
The next morning, Trump tried to justify his failure to secure a cease-fire. His Truth Social post claimed that going for a “peace agreement” was a more laudable aim, as cease-fires break down.
In reality, Trump got played by Putin. Under the proposed understanding, which Trump backed in a phone call to European leaders, Ukraine would have to withdraw its forces from Luhansk and Donetsk, ceding territory the Russian military has tried and failed to capture since March 2022, and agree to freeze the front line in two other regions, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia—all just to get to the starting point for negotiation of a settlement.
In any negotiation, Moscow almost certainly would insist that Ukraine hand over all of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia. In September 2022, Russia annexed those two regions as well as Luhansk and Donetsk (on top of Crimea, annexed in 2014). Other terms of the understanding reportedly include lifting some U.S. sanctions on Russia and international recognition of Crimea as Russian, something the U.S. government during Trump’s first term said it would not do.
This approach would put Kyiv in a very precarious position. It crosses key Ukrainian red lines, such as no ceding of unoccupied territory and no international recognition of occupied areas as Russian. Moreover, Putin seems to believe the Russian military will ultimately prevail on the battlefield. He could at any time declare the negotiation to have failed and resume hostilities. Having taken possession of all of Donetsk, the Russian military would not have to face the heavily fortified defensive lines that have long stymied its advance.
The one positive development was reported U.S. readiness to join some European countries in giving Ukraine a “robust” security guarantee. Details are lacking, other than that the guarantee would not come from NATO.
Giving up territory would be a terribly painful step for Ukraine, but Kyiv has shown signs it might accept de facto loss of some land. The Ukrainian government agreed to a cease-fire in place, and Zelensky has suggested he might agree not to use military force to try to regain lost territory. It is difficult, however, to see Kyiv agreeing to these points without an ironclad security guarantee to ensure Russia does not launch another invasion at a future point. If true, readiness of the United States and some European countries to commit forces to Ukraine’s defense could prove a significant development, but Zelensky will certainly want to hear the specifics.
What the Ukrainians will not do is agree to cede territory, particularly territory the Russians have never occupied, just to start a negotiation—particularly when Moscow could end the negotiation at any point and go back to war.
Key European leaders reacted to Trump’s debrief of the Alaska meeting on Saturday. They issued a statement outlining principles for a settlement, several of which the reported understanding contradicts. While European officials tempered their public remarks and expressed cautious optimism, the leaders of Britain, Germany, France, Italy, Finland, NATO, and the European Commission will join Zelensky at his Monday meeting with Trump. That undoubtedly reflects their concern about the understanding and how it could disadvantage Ukraine and weaken European security.
Their decision to join Zelensky is wise. First, any settlement will have some impact on European security. Second, there is strength in numbers. Third, their presence will reduce the prospect of a repeat of the February Oval Office ambush of Zelensky.
Zelensky and his European colleagues face a tricky challenge. They have to diplomatically offer suggestions to walk Trump back from a position that he does not appear to understand would be bad for Ukraine, bad for Europe, and bad for American interests. And they have to do so without setting off an explosion that could disrupt U.S.-Ukrainian and U.S.-European relations—all to the delight of Putin and the Kremlin.
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