By Maria Popova

August 13, 2025

As the Trump-Putin summit in Alaska looms, the question arises of whether it could mark the end of Russia’s decade-long war against Ukraine. But how can a war end when one of the parties hasn’t been invited to the negotiating table, even though it holds its own militarily on the battlefield?

The White House is already lowering expectations, portraying the summit as a “listening exercise” for Trump in part based on the absence of the party of the second part, even though it controlled the guest list.

Yet, after announcing an August 8th deadline for a ceasefire on penalty of tougher sanctions against Russia, then shifting to an Alaska bilateral, Donald Trump declared with characteristic, nonsensical bravado on Monday that he would know “at the end of that meeting, probably in the first two minutes” whether a deal can be struck, which implies a breakthrough is possible. Or impossible.

The uncertainty, however, isn’t about whether Putin is willing to compromise—he isn’t— but about whether Trump would accept Russia’s maximalist demands and try to impose them on Ukraine (his second attempt at it) or whether he will recognize Putin’s intransigence and maintain, or even increase, American support for Ukraine.

The first reason the summit is unlikely to produce a breakthrough is that Trump has focused on the wrong thing—territorial concessions by Ukraine. However, Ukraine already tried “territories for peace” in 2014 when it did not fight for Crimea, which was illegally annexed by Russia. It didn’t work. Russia fomented a proxy war in Donbas soon after taking Crimea and in 2022, Putin invaded again.

The complexity of the war isn’t about who gets to control small parts of Donbas today. It is about how to stop Russia from invading Ukraine a third time. The complexity is in coming up with and offering Ukraine credible security guarantees—NATO membership, massive military aid commitments, or a nuclear umbrella—and deterring Russia.

Trump has been deliberately avoiding this difficult issue since February when he blew up at Zelensky in the Oval Office when the Ukrainian president brought up the need for security guarantees. Trump still has no plan for solving it. Instead, he is hoping to feed chunks of Ukrainian territory to Russia and get to declare himself peacemaker.

The second obstacle to a breakthrough in Alaska is that Russia has not shown any signs of readiness to compromise. Russian forces are still attacking Ukraine and trying to advance. Russian officials keep asking for Ukraine’s demilitarization, which, de facto, means capitulation. A demilitarized Ukraine cannot guard itself from a third Russian invasion and would not be able to withstand interference in its domestic affairs.

Russia also continues to demand changes to Ukraine’s language laws—another sign that it does not respect Ukraine’s independence and sovereignty. Just imagine the US demanding changes to Canada’s language laws at the point of a gun.

Trump and Putin might, of course, come up with a capitulation proposal dressed up as compromise and try to impose it on Ukraine.

Putin has recently reiterated what he already said in 2021 before launching his latest invasion, that Ukraine is an artificial state and all of it historically belongs to Russia. Russia’s bottom line is not about redrawing Ukraine’s borders, as Trump seems to believe, but about ending Ukraine altogether.

Trump and Putin might, of course, come up with a capitulation proposal dressed up as compromise and try to impose it on Ukraine. However, Zelensky is a democratically constrained president beholden to Ukrainian public opinion and Ukrainians are not ready to surrender to Russian demands.

Polls show that only a minority would support territorial concessions at all and an even smaller minority would support territorial concessions without solid security guarantees. Zelensky has underscored that the Ukrainian constitution does not allow territorial concessions by the president.

Anyone who followed the July flash mass protest in Ukraine over Zelensky’s attempt to weaken anticorruption institutions would understand how significantly and realistically constrained the president is—he had to back off and drop his plans. Ukrainian society will likely stop him even faster from crossing red lines on the war.

Finally, Trump is also constrained by the fact that American public opinion is still on Ukraine’s side. With adjournment, the bipartisan secondary sanctions bill may have been postponed for now, but the bipartisan support for getting tough on Russia is still there. Trump tried stopping aid to Ukraine in a stealthy way a couple of times already but eventually had to reinstate it and deflect blame to Pentagon officials after public outcry and political pressure.

If he attempts to blame Zelensky for rejecting a bad deal, he might not succeed as Zelensky has proven himself a skillful communicator already and he can likely count on the support of European allies to push back.

In short, the summit is very limited in what it can achieve. Putin will try to maneuver into imposing a deal that leaves Ukraine not only partitioned, but also defenceless. Trump is constrained in helping Putin get that deal by domestic public and elite opinion, by Ukraine’s ability to fight for its own sovereignty, and by its support from America’s allies in Europe.

What is the best-case scenario? The only positive outcome could be Trump getting frustrated with Putin, for real this time, and deciding to back Ukraine in earnest. That would be a breakthrough.

However, keep in mind that Trump already fooled us into this hope twice—once after the talks in Saudi Arabia in February and a second time in July, when he imposed this deadline. If he does it a third time, the shame will be on all of us.

Maria Popova is Associate Professor of Political Science at McGill University and Co-Director of the Jean Monnet Centre Montreal. With Oxana Shevel, she recently published a book titled Russia and Ukraine: Entangled Histories, Diverging States.