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Kenneth Hillas is an adjunct professor at the University of Maine Graduate School of Policy and International Affairs, teaching seminars on global politics and U.S. foreign policy. He retired in 2013 as a senior Foreign Service officer and his posts included Moscow. The views expressed in this column are the author’s alone and do not represent those of UMaine.
The perceived political success of all summits depends on managing expectations. In recent days, President Donald Trump has downplayed expectations of a ceasefire agreement between Russia and Ukraine or a land-swap deal, which he mooted initially in announcing Friday’s U.S.-Russia summit. The White House now calls the summit a chance for the president to hear out Vladimir Putin, pushing expectations as low as possible.
There is little doubt Trump really wants to strike a deal with Putin that leads to a settlement; nor has he hidden his hopes of earning a Nobel Peace Prize. Under intense pressure from European allies, Trump has backed away from his initial explanations for inviting Putin to Alaska — making a deal on a ceasefire and discussing land swaps, and Putin’s travel to Alaska, despite being an indicted war criminal, will likely encourage other states to lessen Putin’s isolation.
Preparing a summit takes time and hard work. Doing so in a week is inadequate and means there will be a high level of uncertainty about the results. Another wild card, of course, is that part of the summit will be a one-on-one meeting without notetakers, and Trump’s national security team will only know what he decides to share; secret understandings are a possibility.
Putin’s Ukraine-related goals are several. The first is to play for time to make incremental progress on the battlefield. Russia’s position on a ceasefire has not changed for a year. It conditions a ceasefire on a full withdrawal of Ukrainian troops from three of the four provinces annexed, but not controlled, by Russia; and guarantees Ukraine will not join NATO, which is something Trump has accepted in the past. These conditions are formulated to ensure Ukraine’s rejection.
The second goal is to take off the table a package of tougher U.S. secondary sanctions that was pending in the Senate. These would have complemented new sanctions by the European Union. To achieve this, Putin needs to appear constructive and ready to compromise, even if he does not make tangible concessions.
Putin’s aims at the summit, however, are broader than Ukraine. According to the Russian Foreign Ministry, they include normalization of bilateral relations. Putin’s strategy throughout his rule has been to divide the U.S. from its European allies.
This is a serious concern for European leaders, which is why German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, French President Emmanuel Macron, U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy met with the U.S. president in a video conference Wednesday to discuss the upcoming summit. That virtual meeting appears to have produced an understanding that the terms of a political settlement should not precede a ceasefire, and there should be tangible security guarantees given to Ukraine. We’ll see.
Putin will also make the case that Ukraine was always part of the Russian Empire, not a “real country,” as he has told previous U.S. presidents, and that Ukraine’s tilt toward the West posed a threat to Russia. Trump has embraced these arguments in the past, and they are also widely accepted within Russia.
The summit could be a setback for Putin if Trump draws the conclusion Putin isn’t serious about negotiating a settlement. Trump had reached that conclusion several weeks ago but reversed course in announcing the Aug. 15 summit. Trump has not explained this flip-flop, but it has surely reinforced Putin’s perception that Trump always chickens out. Putin will claim the summit a success by reducing Russia’s international isolation and thus bolster his popular support in a country that has suffered an estimated 1 million casualties, figures that are illegal to publish inside Russia.
For his part, Trump will need to show the summit was more than a “listening exercise.” If Putin commits to a follow-on trilateral summit with Zelenskyy and Trump, it will be an accomplishment, assuming Putin follows through. If not, Trump will once again appear to have been manipulated.
Another success for Trump could be convincing Putin to accept an international peacekeeping force (one proposal is for a Franco-British mission) to serve as security guarantee for Ukraine without U.S. ground troops and not under a NATO flag. It would be a success for Putin if Trump agrees to certain terms for a settlement — such as forcing special elections in Ukraine or recognizing Russia’s previous annexations (not likely) — that would divide the U.S. and its European allies. Both terms are show-stoppers for Kyiv.
As long as Putin is running Russia, his goal is to restore Russia as a great power. At the heart of this is restoring as much as possible the borders of Imperial Russia. That includes most of Ukraine, as well as Moldova and the Baltic states. In this sense, the conflict in Ukraine is but one act in a larger play.
Understanding that reality was hard for European and North American leaders to grasp. In the last three years, however, it has become conventional wisdom among NATO members, with the exception of the leaders of Turkey, Hungary and, ironically, the United States. For it was traditionally the role of the U.S. during the Cold War to forge an alliance consensus in standing up to the Soviet Union.
International affairs, like domestic politics, is a place where change is now endemic, not least with a president such as Donald J. Trump.
