As United States President Donald Trump prepares to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska, many Ukrainians are expressing skepticism about the potential outcomes of the summit. Taras, a seasoned Ukrainian serviceman recovering from a contusion, expects “no miracles” from the meeting. “There’s going to be no miracles, no peace deal in a week, and Putin will try to make Trump believe that it is Ukraine that doesn’t want peace,” Taras told newsmen.
The skepticism in Ukraine is driven by the facts on the ground in eastern Ukraine, where Russia has intensified its push to seize key locations in the southeastern Donetsk region. In the past three months, Russian forces have occupied some 1,500sq km (580 square miles), mostly in Donetsk, of which Russia controls about three-fourths, according to Ukrainian and Western estimates.
Reports suggest that Trump might offer Moscow full control of Donetsk and the smaller neighboring Luhansk region in exchange for a ceasefire and the freezing of the front line in other Ukrainian regions. However, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said that Ukraine will not “gift” its land, and that it needs firm security guarantees from the West. “We don’t need a pause in killings, but a real, long peace. Not a ceasefire some time in the future, in months, but now,” he said in a televised address.
Some civilian Ukrainians hold a gloomy view on the prospects of peace, believing that Kyiv’s tilt towards democracy and presumed eventual membership in the European Union, and Moscow’s “imperialistic nature” set up an equation that prevents a sustainable diplomatic solution. “The war will go on until [either] Ukraine or Russia exist,” Iryna Kvasnevska, a biology teacher in Kyiv whose first cousin was killed in eastern Ukraine in 2023, told newsmen.
The lack of trust in the Alaska summit for many Ukrainians also stems from a deep lack of faith in Trump himself. Despite Trump’s recent change in rhetoric and growing public dissatisfaction with Moscow’s reluctance to end the hostilities, the US president has a history of blaming Ukraine – for the war and its demands of its allies – while some of his negotiators have repeated Moscow’s talking points.
“Trump has let us down several times, and the people who believe he won’t do it again are very naive, if not stupid,” Leonid Cherkasin, a retired colonel from the Black Sea port of Odesa who fought pro-Russian rebels in Donetsk in 2014-2015 and suffered contusions, shrapnel and bullet wounds, told Al Jazeera. “He did threaten Putin a lot in recent weeks, but his actions don’t follow his words,” he said.
Military analysts agree that Putin will not bow to Trump’s and Zelenskyy’s demands. Meanwhile, the very fact of a face-to-face with Trump heralds a diplomatic victory for Putin, who has become a political pariah in the West and faces child abduction charges that have led the International Criminal Court to issue an arrest warrant against him.
“What’s paramount for Putin is the fact of his conversation with Trump as equals,” Nikolay Mitrokhin, a researcher with Germany’s Bremen University, told Al Jazeera. “I think the deal will be limited to an agreement on cessation of air strikes, and Putin will get three months to finalise the land operations – that is, to seize the [entire] Donetsk region.” An air ceasefire may benefit Russia, as it can amass thousands of drones and hundreds of missiles for future attacks. The ceasefire will also stop Ukraine’s increasingly successful drone strikes on military sites, ammunition depots, airfields and oil refineries in Russia or occupied Ukrainian regions.