After weeks of sparring in the press and on social media, President Donald Trump and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin may meet Friday in Alaska. If they do, and especially if the meeting also includes Ukraine’s leader Volodymyr Zelensky, it’s sure to be quite a spectacle.
A meeting between Trump and Putin could mark a breakthrough in long-stalled efforts to resolve the war in Ukraine. Nevertheless, while there are reports of an outline of a workable deal to end the fighting, barriers remain to ending the conflict in a single day. Trump may hope that he can reach a grand bargain with Putin, but his immediate goal—peace in Ukraine—will be best served if he sets realistic expectations for the meeting. If he comes away having forged a real plan for meaningful negotiations between Kiev, Moscow and Washington, his diplomacy will have been a success. To do so, Trump will have to resist spoilers, avoid temptations to chase quick but meaningless wins, and stay focused on what is required to advance peace in Ukraine.
A Trump–Putin summit held in the near future would come at a critical moment in the war. Russia now has an undeniable military edge. It benefits from a 3–1 manpower advantage over Ukraine and can produce two to three times as much ammunition per year as all of NATO combined.
Ukraine’s battlefield position, on the other hand, is deteriorating. A lack of personnel is its most pressing challenge: Kiev is simply unable to recruit enough new soldiers to keep brigades on the front fully manned—especially while desertion rates remain high. In many places, including near the critical city of Pokrovsk, Ukraine’s defensive lines seem on the brink of collapse.
There is little the U.S. or Europe can do to fundamentally change the military balance in Ukraine’s favor. Neither can solve Kiev’s manpower problems or send large quantities of additional weapons to Ukraine. Even the Trump administration’s new plan of supplying Ukraine through direct arms purchases by European nations—while an improvement on the previous approach of drawing directly from depleted U.S. stocks—will provide only limited quantities of new weaponry.
Trump has threatened Russia with more direct sanctions and promised to put secondary sanctions on countries like India and China that continue to buy Russian oil. However, these punishments are unlikely to change Putin’s calculus—something even Trump himself has admitted. Russia has spent years preparing itself to withstand U.S. and European economic pressure, and its economy has fared remarkably well despite the West’s collective best efforts.
Until Trump envoy Steve Witkoff’s recent visit to Moscow, political engagements to end the war seemed to be at a standstill. Trump should use a meeting with Putin to jumpstart the diplomatic efforts that showed real promise early in his term. Accordingly, Trump and his national security team should build a focused agenda and short list of achievable goals.
First, Trump should focus his discussion with Putin on Ukraine. It will be tempting for Trump to expand the conversation to the wider set of issues at stake in the bilateral relationship between Russia and the United States. This includes economic opportunities and sanctions relief, the United States’ security role in Europe, NATO’s future, or strategic stability. While Trump should keep these broader issues in mind—especially where they might serve as carrots to entice Putin to compromise—he should make finding a path to a ceasefire and enduring peace in Ukraine the priority in this summit. Until the war itself is resolved, it will be difficult for the U.S. to make real progress on normalizing and rebuilding relations with Russia—an important goal, but one that should not be at the center of this meeting.
Second, Trump and his advisors should welcome small victories. Outcomes do not need to be game-changing for the meeting to be productive. An end to the war is more likely to come from a series of baby steps than a giant leap. Simply by meeting, Putin and Trump may elevate the urgency on both of their sides to press for peace. Getting Putin to agree in principle to a cessation of long-range airstrikes on civilian and energy targets, arranging for additional prisoner of war exchanges, or simply planning to meet again at specified time in the future would all count as meaningful, if incremental, progress forward, while also alleviating some of the suffering caused by the war.
The most important deliverable that might come from a summit between the Russian and American leaders, however, would be a joint commitment to start a real negotiating process, joined by Ukraine, to hash out the details and requirements for an enduring settlement. Even if it is ultimately Putin and Trump that close the deal, some kind of bargaining process will be needed to lay the foundation for a lasting settlement. The more specific the plan and timeline for this process, including participants and locations, the more likely it is to bring real results.
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Trump should be on the lookout for spoilers who may try to talk him out of the meeting or convince him ahead of time to adopt positions that will undermine the negotiations from the start. In the past, for example, European leaders have opposed Trump’s efforts to work with Putin and take his demands seriously. Many European leaders do not have U.S. interests in mind, however, but rather hope to keep the United States involved in Ukraine and invested in Europe for as long as possible for their own ends. Likewise, there are many in Ukraine who want to see the war continue to preserve their political and economic power. Trump should ignore these and other voices and push ahead with his diplomatic outreach.
Trump deserves immense credit for continuing his outreach to Putin. The Biden administration never seriously prioritized diplomacy, which needlessly prolonged the war at key points.
Nevertheless, President Trump should also remember the U.S. has few interests at stake in Ukraine. Endless U.S. support—military, diplomatic, or otherwise—to the ongoing conflict is unsustainable and may actually disincentivize key actors from ending the war. President Trump should not be afraid to walk away from the war if it becomes clear that even his best efforts cannot broker an enduring settlement. While this option may seem like an admission of defeat, it may be necessary to preserve U.S. flexibility, resources, and diplomatic bandwidth for more urgent national security priorities.
