For all his posturing, Vladimir Putin knows he is on the back foot. The International Criminal Court (ICC) recently issued an arrest warrant against him based on his alleged involvement in child abduction. This legal conundrum has not deterred him from pursuing diplomatic engagements. He’s especially keen on a possible one with the most assessable, former U.S. president Donald Trump, hoping to use the encounter to boost his own fortunes. This will be the first time Putin has visited the United States for bilateral discussions since 2007. Since then, he has only been able to attend UN summits and has been barred from traveling because of the ICC’s warrant.
Putin wants to appear as a peacemaker to Trump. Shrewder critics have pointed out that the real goal of the meeting is to improve Trump’s self-image and avoid further economic sanctions from Western countries. The Russian leader is eager to achieve a significant military breakthrough in eastern Ukraine amidst ongoing conflict, which has seen Ukraine reclaim most of the territory occupied by Russian forces in the northern Sumy region.
International condemnation notwithstanding, Putin continues with impunity to carry out illegal, brutal military attacks on civilians. He is now a political pariah in the West, but that doesn’t stop him. In fact, his forces have been shelling daily Ukrainian cities literally into the ground with a daily deadly dance of missiles and drones. Over the last three months, Russian troops have expeditiously taken by force over 1,500 square kilometers. They have taken full control of almost three-fourths of the territory in Donetsk oblast.
As we’ve reported, this territorial gain has come at a terribly steep cost. According to some estimates, Russian forces have already lost over 300,000 active-duty servicemen. Additionally, their attempts to create a buffer zone in northern Ukraine have been mostly unsuccessful. To the credit of the Ukrainian military, they have largely held back this advance, taking back nearly all the territory lost. In contrast, Russian troops are conducting dangerous suicide missions to penetrate overwhelmingly fortified Ukrainian defenses.
As Putin seeks a diplomatic victory by possibly engaging with Trump, analysts caution against the ramifications of such a meeting. The prospect of Trump offering Moscow full control over Donetsk and Luhansk has raised alarms among Ukrainians who fear it could lead to a ceasefire that would halt Ukraine’s successful drone strikes on critical military sites within occupied territories.
Taras, a prominent Ukrainian military analyst, doubted that any peace agreement would happen any time soon. He stated, “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.”
Leonid Cherkasin, another expert, highlighted Trump’s history of disappointing commitments and warned against naivety in believing he would act differently this time. He said Trump has failed us four times already. He says that anyone who believes that Trump wouldn’t do it again is extremely naive, if not outright stupid. Cherkasin explained that even though Trump has started to make some threats towards Putin the past couple of weeks, he hasn’t followed through on any of those threats.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has consistently spoken to what any potential ceasefire deal would look like. He emphasized the need for a genuine peace rather than a mere pause in hostilities: “We don’t need a pause in killings, but a real, long peace. Not a ceasefire in the coming months, in weeks, but now.
The war drags on as each side still harbors existential aspirations. As Iryna Kvasnevska explained, “the war will continue until one of the two—Ukraine or Russia—does not exist.” This announcement highlights the high stakes at play while both parties continue to dig in their heels.
Experts think that Putin is counting on winning something big by winter. Timothy Taras, with the Harvard Kennedy School, noted that Putin is delusional. He hopes his forces will seize some major victory or breakthrough the current front line before winter, enabling them to dictate terms to Ukraine. These ambitions would only undermine any diplomatic overtures and drag out the conflict longer.
A Trump/Putin summit would have a tremendous impact on the geopolitical landscape. Nikolay Mitrokhin commented on the significance of this meeting for Putin: “What’s paramount for Putin is the fact of his conversation with Trump as equals.” He cautioned that such an encounter might lead to further deception: “Then [Putin] will, of course, fool Trump, and everything will resume.”
