Putin and Trump to meet in Alaska as Ukraine and Europe hold their breath

The eyes of the world — especially those of Ukraine and Europe — will be fixed this Friday on the summit between U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin, to be held at the Elmendorf-Richardson military base, on the outskirts of Anchorage, on Alaska’s coast.

The White House, eager to lower expectations, has described the meeting as a mere introductory contact, with decisions to be left for later, possibly at a future summit between Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy.

But European governments and Kyiv, absent from the tête-à-tête, are holding their breath. The fear is that, despite promises from Washington, Putin will end up bringing Trump over to his side — that the talk will not remain a simple exchange of views, but will lay the groundwork for a grim future for Ukraine, without Ukraine.

The unease has been strengthened by the Kremlin’s statements and by Russian advances on the front lines in the run-up to the meeting. A Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson has stressed that Moscow is not willing to budge: it demands the withdrawal from all Ukrainian provinces it claims as its own — even those under Kyiv’s control — as well as a definitive blockade of Ukraine’s entry into NATO, and the lifting of Western sanctions on Russia.

Trump, meanwhile, continues to argue that the real negotiation will take place — if this Friday’s contacts are successful — at the possible meeting between Putin and Zelenskiy. After warning the Russian leader of “severe consequences” if no progress is detected in the talks, the U.S. president has even hinted at the possibility of extending the Alaska meeting to include the Ukrainian leader.

“Depending on what happens with my meeting, I’m going to be calling up President Zelensky, and let’s get him over to wherever we’re going to meet,” Trump told Fox News Radio. But he also made clear that such a meeting would address territorial division: “I don’t want to use the word divvy things up, but you know, to a certain extent, it’s not a bad term.”

In that case, according to the Republican, it would be Putin and Zelenskiy who would have to negotiate the terms of a peace agreement. But he has insisted that sealing a deal will have to involve the division of territories. “There will be a give and take as to boundaries, lands, etc., etc.,” Trump told Fox. “The second meeting is going to be very, very important.”

The U.S. president has also acknowledged the possibility that Friday’s summit in Alaska could end in nothing, putting the odds at “25%.”

Preparations for the meeting continue at the military base and in Anchorage. Alaska’s largest city — home to 290,000 people in the least densely populated U.S. state — currently in the middle of tourist season and with hotels packed, could not have imagined a week ago that its name might end up in the history books linked to the future of the war in Ukraine.

The two leaders are scheduled to arrive in Alaska in mid-morning, local time, and take part in a welcome ceremony before starting their summit at 11:30 a.m. (3:30 p.m. in Washington). They will first speak privately, accompanied only by their interpreters, before bringing in their respective teams. After the talks, Trump is expected to give a press conference, although it is unclear whether Putin will also take part.

The very fact that the meeting is being held — and where — is already a win for Putin. The photo of the two leaders together will mark the end of nearly four years of international isolation for the Russian president, even though he has yet to agree to the ceasefire demanded as a precondition. The meeting is taking place on U.S. soil, which — apart from visits to the United Nations in New York — Putin has not set foot on since 2007, when George W. Bush invited him to an informal meeting at his private summer residence in Kennebunkport, Massachusetts.

Alaska, moreover, is not just any territory: Moscow sold it to Washington in 1867 for $7.2 million. The symbolism does not end there: it is the U.S. state farthest from Europe — with the exception of Hawaii.

“The mere holding of this meeting is already beneficial for Russia, and it does nothing for Ukraine,” said Olga Tohariuk, from the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA). “Putin feels legitimized without making any concessions in return. Ukraine is under pressure to make concessions even before any negotiations can begin in Alaska.”

Land swaps

Since the announcement of the Alaska summit, the Republican has given no details about the alleged land swap between the two warring countries, beyond assuring that it would be for “the good of Ukraine.” But Putin wants the entirety of the four provinces Russia has partially occupied since February 2022, when he launched the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. His troops completely control the province of Luhansk, about 70% of Donetsk, and roughly half of Zaporizhzhia and Kherson.

Zelenskiy firmly rejects any territorial concessions and points out that he has no authority to grant them: the Ukrainian Constitution stipulates that such a step would have to be approved in a referendum, which would almost certainly fail. While the vast majority of the Ukrainian population — exhausted and bled dry — supports a ceasefire and an end to the war, it also rejects handing over to its aggressor territories whose defense has cost tens of thousands of lives and immense resources.

Voluntarily giving up the cities of this industrial and mineral-rich area would also open the door to another invasion in the future: between Russian troops and Kyiv, there would be nothing but a vast plain. This would be disastrous if, moreover — as Putin intends — the territorial cession came without security guarantees.

In Anchorage, Putin will have to make some concession, reasons Jana Kobzova, co-director of the European Defence Centre at the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR). Otherwise, he risks provoking the wrath of the volatile Trump and having him finally impose the sanctions and tariffs he has been threatening for months but has never actually enforced. The Russian leader, she explains, “will have to respond in some way to Trump’s desire to be the architect of peace between Russia and Ukraine. But at the same time, he currently has the advantage on the battlefield, so if things don’t go his way diplomatically, he can escalate the fighting.”

The most favorable outcome for Russia, in this expert’s opinion, could be the “neutralization” of the U.S. in the conflict: that Washington step aside in peace negotiations and stop sending weapons to Kyiv. To achieve this, Putin could offer in Anchorage some of the carrots he knows Trump likes most: trade agreements, joint energy exploitation, or even cooperation over resources in the Arctic — a region of particular interest to a U.S. president who remains intent on gaining control of Greenland. On the eve of the meeting, the Kremlin alluded to the possibility of negotiations on nuclear arms control.

The best possible outcome for Ukraine, according to Tokariuk, would be for there to be no agreement between Putin and Trump in Alaska. “That no pressure be put on Kyiv to cede territory. An even better result would be for Trump to announce sanctions against Russia, but so far these threats have never materialized,” she continues.

Europe is crossing its fingers after a week of high-level diplomacy to persuade Trump of the need to support Ukraine. The allies, who met with Trump via videoconference on Wednesday, would prefer genuine peace talks that also include Ukraine.

In any case, the U.S. president needs to announce some sort of outcome from a meeting in which much of his diplomatic capital is at stake — and his great ambition: that Nobel Peace Prize for which the White House is increasingly campaigning.

“Trump has based his presidency on constant activity to demonstrate power,” says Jim O’Brien from the ECFR. “He needs Alaska to produce headlines, and a promise that this will continue on the path toward peace. The ‘how’ and the ‘what’ matter far less to him than to Putin, Kyiv, and the Europeans. Trump is playing at being the man of action. Putin, the empire builder,” concludes

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