Russian President Vladimir Putin appears to be resisting a bilateral meeting with Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy, casting doubt over whatever hopes for peace may have been generated by a week of summit diplomacy.
That bilateral meeting is supposed to be the next step in a process inaugurated by US President Donald Trump last Friday, when he and Putin met in Alaska.
European leaders told Trump in a follow-up meeting in Washington on Monday that if Putin doesn’t cooperate, more sanctions should be imposed on the creaking Russian economy.
The week of meetings did nothing to lessen hostilities in Ukraine, where Russia appeared to try to deal a decisive blow to Ukrainian defenders ahead of the Trump-Putin summit, but was instead pushed back from previously captured territory. It also maintained a steady rain of drones and missiles on Ukraine’s cities every day.
A day ahead of the Alaska summit, Russian forces attempted a major push towards Dobropillia, a city in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region that lies just 15km (9 miles) north of Pokrovsk, a target Russia has prioritized since last summer.
Ukrainian General Staff spokesman Andriy Kovalev said reserves had stabilized the situation. On Friday, Dnipro Group of Forces spokesman Colonel Viktor Trehubov confirmed Russian infiltrators had been cleared from Pokrovsk and a group of outlying villages.
“Russia’s intention was to demonstrate strength ahead of Alaska, but in fact, for the occupier, this ends with its destruction,” Zelenskyy said in his Friday evening address. Russia did seize some land.
Its Defence Ministry confirmed the capture of Sobolivka near Kupiansk in Ukraine’s northern Kharkiv region on Tuesday, and Novogeorgievka in Dnipropetrovsk and Pankovka in Donetsk on Wednesday.
Trump appeared to seesaw between the positions of his interlocutors across the two summits.
On August 13, Trump had warned of “very severe consequences” if Putin did not stop the war in Ukraine. After spending just under three hours in talks with Putin at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson near Anchorage on Friday, Trump reversed himself on sanctions, opening a new rift between the US and Ukraine’s European allies.
“Because of what happened today, I don’t have to think about that. Maybe I have to think about it in two weeks or three weeks,” Trump told Fox presenter Sean Hannity.
Trump moved away from his demand for a ceasefire, a condition he announced shortly after assuming office. “The US president’s position has changed after talks with Putin, and now the discussion will focus not on a truce, but on the end of the war.
And a new world order. Just as Moscow wanted,” Olga Skabeyeva, a prominent Russian state TV host, wrote on Telegram.
European leaders continue to stand on principle, saying no land can be won through aggression, and Ukraine shouldn’t be asked to cede any territory to Russia as part of a formula known as “land for peace”.
“Once we recognise part of Donbas [as Russian territory]… There is no more international order,” Macron said, using a term that refers to the regions of Luhansk and Donetsk.
“This isn’t compliant with the UN Charter. And the day after, our collective credibility, the US, Europeans, permanent members of the Security Council, will be totally zero.”
But Trump mentioned this month that any peace deal will involve a “land swap” between Russia and Ukraine.
Trump also appeared willing to concede large tracts of Ukrainian land to Russia. Vladimir Zharikhin, a Kremlin-affiliated expert, suggested Trump had ruled out as impossible the return of Crimea to Ukraine, calling it de facto recognition of its possession by Russia.