- If there is any sort of agreement on a second meeting or multilateral summit, Trump ‘could spin that into a real positive,’ according to American academic David Kearn

WASHINGTON

Global attention will soon land on the far-flung US state of Alaska when President Donald Trump hosts his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin for talks aimed at ending the Ukraine war.

Friday’s meeting, which comes at Putin’s request, is set to take place as battle lines across Ukraine have largely remained static over the summer, even as Russia has made a slow grind in the country’s east amid pounding bombardment on cities far from the frontlines.

Amid the fighting, neither side has moved forward on any initiative to end the conflict, with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy ruling out any possibility of ceding territory for peace – a proposal Trump has strongly endorsed.

“Ukrainians will not give their land to the occupier,” Zelensky said over the weekend in the wake of Trump suggesting that any prospective peace deal would include land swaps “to the betterment of both” Russia and Ukraine.

The issue has repeatedly been a stumbling block to any effort to end the conflict, and it is unclear how it can be overcome as the Ukrainian president faces strong domestic opposition to surrendering territory after over three years of bitter fighting. It would also require a change to Ukraine’s post-Soviet Constitution.

For his part, Putin has shown no desire to end the war short of total victory against Kyiv, a goal that even under the best conditions appears years away, as Russian forces continue to rack up thousands of casualties weekly and key stockpiles run dry.

‘Setting the table’

The White House itself has sought to sharply downplay expectations for the summit, describing the meeting as a “listening exercise” for the president to get a better handle on Putin’s perspectives.

“The president is agreeing to this meeting at the request of President Putin. And the goal of this meeting for the president is to walk away with a better understanding of how we can end this war,” spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said Tuesday.

Leavitt was alluding to the fact that Putin requested the meeting during a sit-down last week with Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff in Moscow.

Asked what Trump’s primary goal is heading into the meeting, David Kearn, an associate professor in government and politics at St. John’s University, said he is simply seeking to broker a “tangible” deliverable.

“I think his central objective is to try to come up with something tangible in terms of some sort of ceasefire or truce that he can show as a diplomatic victory in bringing the parties together,” Kearn told Anadolu.

He maintained, however, that it is “completely plausible” that the president would seek to portray a potential follow-up meeting between himself, Zelenskyy and Putin as a major “win” – if he can get Putin to agree to the trilateral come Friday.

“We’ve seen the way he presents himself, and very often there’s kind of big promises, and he usually leaves himself some sort of fallback position,” said Kearn, who is also a visiting scholar at Harvard University’s Managing the Atom Project.

“I think that, again, if there was no deliverable but there was kind of a handshake that there would be a second meeting or there’d be a multilateral summit, I suppose he could spin that into a real positive,” he added.

Trump appears to have done just that during remarks to reporters Wednesday, suggesting there was “a very good chance” that he could broker the three-way summit during Friday’s meeting.

“It’s setting the table for the second meeting,” he said.

Who has the leverage?

Throughout the course of his first half-year in office, Trump has questioned major underpinnings of the US’ long-time alliances, including Washington’s commitment to NATO and its mutual defense clause, known as Article 5.

The public remarks have raised concerns in Europe, which deepened in February after Trump and Vice President JD Vance publicly scolded Zelenskyy at the Oval Office, accusing him of being ungrateful for years of US support, prompting the Ukrainian leader to abruptly leave the White House.

The spectacle not only rattled Washington’s ties with Kyiv, but more fundamentally escalated concerns in Europe over Trump’s commitment to transatlantic security. In July, the US president went on to impose a since-rescinded halt to American military assistance for Kyiv.

“It’s very hard to walk into the room and, obviously, stand across from Putin and try to put on a front of toughness when everyone knows what has led up to this meeting,” said Kearn. “There isn’t a lot of leverage there.”

Personal ties and diplomatic relations

Trump has long touted his personal relationships with global leaders, even those who lead adversarial states, including Putin.

But months of comparably favorable posturing vis-a-vis the Russian leader have given way to Trump publicly voicing his frustration and warning of “severe consequences” if Putin does not accept an end to the war, calling Russian attacks on Ukraine “disgusting.”

The comments are a far cry from earlier in Trump’s second term when the focus of the US president was on pressuring Kyiv.

In February, the US delegation to the UN opposed a General Assembly resolution that condemned Russia’s “aggression” and demanded respect for Ukraine’s territorial integrity, at a time when Trump was seeking to build bridges with the Kremlin.

“He thought he had a pretty good working relationship with Putin. The results have not been in the offing thus far,” said Kearn.

“I think there’s a bit of desperation at this point, that he really wants a deal, which I don’t think obviously sets up for a necessarily great, equitable long-term, sustainable outcome.”​​​​​​​