What Putin wants from Trump in Alaska

THE TIMING could not have been worse. Days before a crucial summit in Alaska between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin, scheduled for August 15th, Russian forces broke through Ukraine’s defensive line. Near the breakout area, north of the Ukrainian stronghold of Pokrovsk, soldiers report panic and confusion.

Shtyk, an officer in the 93rd brigade, says Ukraine is still working out where the enemy is. He estimates the main breakthrough penetrated over 10km, cutting a key supply road. “The wedge hasn’t expanded yet, but it’s a depressing situation,” Shtyk says. “There was a failure to build defences.” With crack units deployed to the scene, Ukraine will probably soon contain the advance.

But the surge has convinced soldiers that Russia intends to keep pursuing its war. They worry that the American president will draw the wrong lesson: that Ukraine is weak, rather than that Russia is bloodthirsty. “Ukrainian soldiers will always be against a bad peace on the enemy’s terms,” says Deputy, a drone commander in the 30th brigade. If there is a ceasefire, he wants to “hang up my uniform and never put it on again. Not to have to head to draft offices again in five years.”

Three and a half years into the war, front-line soldiers are tired and criticism of the leadership is growing. But everyone agrees that the “land swaps” American leaders have been bandying about ahead of the Alaska summit are unacceptable. Boar, the nom de guerre of a company commander in the 56th brigade, says a retreat would betray fallen comrades. He has just returned from three weeks in trenches near Chasiv Yar, where Ukraine has held a narrow strip in the face of years of Russian assaults. Russia continues to throw men at it, he says, losing perhaps ten soldiers for every Ukrainian. Vasyl, an infantryman, goes further. “If Trump were here, I’d tell him to go and do a Russian warship,” invoking the obscene reply Ukrainian border guards supposedly gave Russian naval officers in the war’s first days.

Uncertainty hangs over Mr Trump’s summit. There will be no seat at the table for Volodymyr Zelensky, nor for Ukraine’s European allies. Although a ceasefire is on the agenda, The Economist understands that the talks will venture further. One potential area is a deeper normalisation of diplomatic and business relations between America and Russia, including a lifting of sanctions. Mr Putin yearns for this kind of rehabilitation. Another is co-operation in the Arctic, for example over energy.

What offers Russia might make for peace are less obvious. In July secret talks between Ukrainian and Russian negotiators made notable progress, bringing the two sides closer than they had been for some time. Then Mr Trump lost patience with Mr Putin, threatening him with “crippling” sanctions if he did not stop the war. That seemed to reflect the influence of Keith Kellogg, a retired American general and presidential envoy.

But another faction in the White House has a competing vision. Steve Witkoff, a longtime real-estate associate whom Mr Trump appointed as another special envoy, made an unannounced visit to Moscow on August 6th. He appears to have made proposals much less acceptable to Ukraine.

Mr Witkoff favours a grand deal between America and Russia. His involvement in negotiations has usually been to Ukraine’s detriment. It has also been marked by incompetence. Reports suggest he did not understand Mr Putin’s offer to “swap” Ukrainian-controlled land in Donbas for a promise not to attack elsewhere—getting territory in exchange for words. Mr Putin has a habit of offering “concessions” designed to fragment Ukrainian unity.

Somehow, discussion of acknowledging Russian control of territory it occupies has shifted into talk of giving Russia more. The concept of swaps has been around since last year, when Ukrainian forces held positions inside Russia’s Kursk region. Ukraine has since lost almost all of Kursk, rendering that proposal moot. But the zombie notion of swaps remains alive in Washington. Sources say Ukraine’s latest proposals insist that a full ceasefire must come before talk of ceding territory. Anything else, one source warns, would open a “Pandora’s box”. Yet the Americans are urging Ukraine to make a counter-offer including some of its own land.

A remote summit on August 13th of European leaders with Mr Zelensky and Mr Trump, chaired by Friedrich Merz, Germany’s chancellor, tried to create a united front against such pressure. The Europeans agreed that a truce had to precede any negotiations, that Ukraine must have a place at the table and that it would receive security guarantees in any deal. Mr Merz said Mr Trump “largely shares” the European and Ukrainian positions, leaving unclear which ones he did not endorse. Yet Ukraine’s allies still worry that America’s president will insist on land swaps that will be difficult for Mr Zelensky to deliver. In recent days Mr Trump has returned to his old habit of blaming Ukraine’s president for Russia’s invasion.

On the eastern front there is little time to read headlines. Life here brings a different set of concerns, soldiers say. Boar has spent the past three weeks trying to stay alive, sleeping with one eye open while watching for the next group of Russians crawling towards his position. Mr Trump’s wishes carry little authority, he says. “Authority means my brothers-in-arms. It means Sasha, who carried 300 people out of a trench under fire…It is the rows of crosses marking where our comrades fell. How can we simply give that away?” ■