Brussels – The day of pure unpredictability has come. It could pass with nothing more than talk—lofty promises, veiled threats—and little else. Or it could alter the course of the war in Ukraine, though even then no one can say in which direction. The Trump–Putin summit is, for now, both everything and nothing, at least until the talk in Alaska will end. And none of this is remotely reassuring for both Ukraine and Europe.
“I’m not particularly optimistic. Trump has already offered Putin two big gifts.” Rosa Balfour, director of Carnegie Europe, voices her scepticism and concern over the potential outcome of the Alaska summit during an interview with The New Union Post. First, the simple fact that Putin—a political leader isolated by the West under international law and accused of war crimes—is travelling to the United States “is already a big breakthrough” for him, she argues. Secondly, the meeting will be about global affairs—not only the war in Ukraine—a goal pursued by the Kremlin and not hindered by Trump, who is giving Putin “the opportunity to show the world that nothing can happen without US–Russia dialogue.”
With this in mind, European leaders have been trying to “whisper into Trump’s ear”, most notably during a call on 13 August. “I would say they have had some modest successes,” Balfour admits. After the call, signalled he would not rush into any decision without Ukraine at the table and would seek a ceasefire before the start of peace talks. Some of the ideas he had floated earlier—such as the possibility of land swaps—also appear to have been dropped. “But how long will this last? We don’t know. And the precedents don’t give us much reason for optimism,” she warns.
The devil is (not always) in the details
It is true that, compared with a few months ago, the US president has actually recognised that Ukraine needs to be at the negotiating table for any crucial decision. “The European coordinated diplomatic action has not been in vain,” Balfour highlights, referring to the efforts of all the main leaders to “instil some ideas into Trump’s head” after the disastrous meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in the Oval Office on 28 February.
European coordination is one of the few grounds for optimism. All the leaders—each in their own style—agreed on the importance of sending the same messages to their US counterpart, acknowledging the importance of the summit. Despite representing a partial win for Putin, this is not what they are saying, because “they want to flatter Trump,” notes Carnegie Europe’s director. Since the day he was re-elected, this form of appeasement has been “consistently” pursued by EU and UK leaders, who see it as helping them “achieve some goals.”
This seems to be the case with some of the lines the US president has now started to repeat—ceasefire before negotiations, no decisions without Ukraine. But how long will this change last? “Multiple leaders he listens to are giving the same message, and maybe numbers count. At the same time, let’s not forget that Trump’s worldview is quite skewed and biased towards Putin’s,” Balfour warns. This has proven consistent over the years, not only through his numerous dealings with Russia and Russian businessmen in the US, but also in the idea that the world is divided into spheres of influence. “I think these are deeply held beliefs.”
In short, “even if Europeans manage to tinker with some of the details, I wouldn’t say that we can trust this has actually changed Trump’s mind,” Balfour warns, cautioning against overestimating European leaders’ influence over the US president. “He might be repeating some talking points,” but that doesn’t necessarily mean the Alaska summit will be without major risks.
The risks of the Trump-Putin summit
History offers few anchors of hope. If we analyse the latest US–Russia summit—held in Helsinki in 2018—”this was a total disaster from the perspective of the West,” Balfour recalls. Trump went completely unscripted into the meeting, sidelining all his advisers and accepting Putin’s worldview as fact. All this occurred despite the US president having been briefed and prepared by both his allies and his staff.
Today, “he is walking into a meeting without the added benefit of knowledge and expertise.” Most members of the National Security Council have been fired, and no one in his inner circle is an expert on Russia. Carnegie Europe’s director emphasises that, while Trump believes he has negotiating tactics, “he is missing the fundamental elements of a good diplomatic negotiation.”
It should not be forgotten that much is at stake for Ukraine—and for the whole of Europe. First of all, the land issue, a fundamental matter of international law. As Balfour explains, if we acknowledge that territorial boundaries can be redrawn by force, “that is setting a disastrous example for the rest of the world.” Yet there is another issue that has received far too little attention in the Western public debate: “Russia has not modified any of its maximalist goals, and among them are ‘regime change’ and the demilitarisation of Ukraine.”
The risk during the Alaska summit, she warns, is that Putin could start talking about the ‘Zelensky regime’ and the need to ‘denazify Ukraine’—as he has already done several times. “What if he catches Trump off guard, forcing him to make some statements that are of disastrous consequence for Ukraine?” Balfour asks. Such a scenario would not only threaten Ukraine’s very survival but also pose a grave security risk to Europe. At present, Ukraine is “the best guarantee” of European security, by virtue of its army’s ability to resist Russian forces. But if Trump were to suggest that demilitarisation was a legitimate option, “that would have huge consequences for the whole continent.”
The final point is that Russia “has no intention whatsoever” of halting the conflict. While the Russian army is currently making territorial gains in the Donetsk region, the Kremlin has little incentive to stop fighting unless it can secure substantial gains. Since a few months into the invasion, “Putin has become convinced that he has better staying power than Ukraine, than Europe, than the United States.” Now, two of his diplomatic goals have already been met—to be recognised as an international player and to broaden the meeting’s agenda beyond Ukraine—with Trump “likely to throw in some business deals into the conversation, as he has done on every occasion.”
Ukraine’s EU accession on the background
The summit in Alaska comes at a time when attention is fixed on the war and the land issue, yet the broader picture is that Ukraine has been accepted as a candidate to join the European Union. Carnegie Europe’s director notes that, despite the exhaustion caused by the war, “Ukrainians are truly committed to defending themselves and to making sure that the future Ukraine is a viable, democratic and sustainable country.”
This determination was evident in the public protests against President Zelensky’s attempt to take control of the anti-corruption agencies in late July. Even in wartime, people took to the streets to demand independent bodies capable of investigating corruption—forcing the President to backtrack. “The reason Ukraine is able to fight back so successfully is because of civic mobilisation, and this is a force that needs to be reckoned with,” Balfour concludes. “Politicians like Trump and Putin cannot understand this, because they see the world as a game of chess.” And, of course, in chess there are only pawns, not the force of people.
