Washington DC — Come Friday, the leaders of the US and Russia are scheduled to meet in Alaska to explore the possibility of reaching an agreement to end the war in Ukraine, which has been ongoing since February 2022.
This summit follows multiple rounds of talks, phone conversations, and diplomatic tours that have failed to yield a breakthrough.
In July 2025, three rounds of negotiations between Russia and Ukraine took place in Istanbul, Türkiye. Despite agreements on prisoner exchanges and body swaps, the parties couldn’t reach a truce in the conflict, which has killed tens of thousands of civilians and soldiers and inflicted significant economic and infrastructural damage on the European neighbours.
On Monday, US President Donald Trump stated at a White House press conference that his talks with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin at the Alaska summit would be a "feel-out meeting" to determine Putin's willingness to make a deal.
While the Trump administration is seeking "some negotiated settlement that the Ukrainians and the Russians can live with", it remains uncertain whether the Trump-Putin summit will bring a resolution to the Ukraine war any closer.
"The possibility exists," Mikhail Alexseev, a Professor of Political Science at San Diego State University, California, tells TRT World.
"The most plausible path toward that would be if Putin agrees to Trump's earlier 30-day unconditional ceasefire proposal, to which Ukraine had long agreed."
Alexseev suggests that this hinges on whether Trump's recent actions — including the threat to reposition nuclear submarines closer to Russia, additional tariffs on India for buying Russian energy, and an agreement with NATO to ship more weapons to Ukraine — have sufficiently convinced Putin that the West will more strongly support Ukraine than before.
Flurry of diplomatic activity
The summit's location holds considerable significance. Both the US and Russia are familiar with the territory.
Putin will fly across the Bering Strait in his first visit by a Russian leader to Alaska, even though it was part of the czarist empire until 1867.
Alaska was colonised by the Russian Empire from the 18th century. Czar Alexander II sold it to the US in 1867 for $7.2 million.
And since Trump announced the summit location with Putin, diplomatic activity has surged.
The Foreign Ministers of the European Union have expressed support for US steps that will lead to "a just peace" in Ukraine, with the bloc's Foreign Policy Chief Kaja Kallas calling for "more sanctions against Russia, more military support for Ukraine and more support for Ukraine's budgetary needs and accession process to join the EU"
Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has engaged with more than 13 counterparts over four days, including key allies such as Germany, Britain, and France.
On Monday, he engaged with Canadian, Indian, and Saudi Arabian leaders to garner international backing for his nation beyond Europe.
Putin has also made a flurry of calls in recent days, speaking to the leaders of China, India, Brazil, and three ex-Soviet states to brief them on his meeting with Trump.
Meanwhile, Germany is convening a virtual meeting of European leaders on Wednesday to discuss how to pressure Russia ahead of a European call with Trump. Ukraine's leader and EU and NATO officials are expected to join the crucial meeting.
"I see little room for a ceasefire that equitably balances all parties' interests, especially one that acknowledges Ukraine's legitimate claims to its occupied territories and provides meaningful security guarantees to deter future aggression," argues Mariya Y. Omelicheva, a Professor of Strategy at the National War College in Washington, DC-based National Defence University.
Omelicheva, who specialises in Russia's foreign policy as well as US security assistance to Ukraine, tells TRT World that ending a war by "pressuring a weaker party" (Ukraine) into an "unfavourable agreement" may not end the conflict.
"Unfortunately, Russia and Ukraine remain locked in fundamentally incompatible claims. Russia seeks territorial expansion and aims to deny Ukraine its independent nationhood. Ukraine's sovereignty is at risk as long as Russia occupies large portions of its territory and no credible mechanisms exist to deter future invasions," says Omelicheva.
Trump's land swap pitch
Prior to the summit, Trump and his administration had discussed land swaps to end the Russia-Ukraine war, a proposal Zelenskyy strongly opposes.
Speaking to reporters on Monday, Trump said, "There'll be some land swapping going on. I know that through Russia and through conversations with everybody, to the good of Ukraine." Trump said Russia had occupied some "very prime territory" but "we're going to try to get some of that territory back."
Trump's land exchange remark echoed his prior suggestion of a deal involving "some swapping of territories to the betterment of both sides."
Asked about his expectations for the Alaska summit on August 15, the US Vice President JD Vance, in an interview, said that Washington was going to "try to find some negotiated settlement that the Ukrainians and Russians can live with."
Vance conceded: "It's not going to make anybody super happy; both the Russians and the Ukrainians probably at the end of the day are going to be unhappy with it."
Omelicheva states that the idea of swapping territories is a "misleading euphemism" that attempts to frame territorial concessions as a fair compromise. She adds that, in reality, it implies Ukraine must cede parts of its sovereign land to Russia.
"Russia currently occupies portions of four Ukrainian regions — Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson — as well as Crimea, which it annexed in 2014. Although Russian forces do not fully control all areas within these four regions, Moscow claims them as its own. In this context, a 'territory swap' would mean Russia retains control over Donbass in exchange for relinquishing its claims to Kherson and Zaporizhzhia. Such a deal would legitimise Russia's aggression and undermine Ukraine's sovereignty," says Omelicheva.
Ukraine holds barely any Russian territory. But Russia currently controls about 20 per cent of Ukrainian land.
For more than three years, Ukraine has tried to repel Russian forces in the largest and deadliest European conflict since World War 2. Despite Ukraine's lack of outright victory, Russia's failure to fully occupy the country has led to a protracted stalemate.
Alexseev maintains that it is "highly unlikely" that any kind of territorial swap will resolve the conflict.
"This is because Russia's objective is not to gain some percentage of Ukraine's territory, but to control Ukraine entirely. This means that Russia would only offer the kind of swaps that it assesses would destabilise Ukraine internally and undermine its capacity to fight back against Russia," he says.
"For instance, they may claim to abandon claims to the parts of the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia provinces that Russia currently doesn't occupy and/or to withdraw from small slivers of land it captured along Ukraine's northern border near Sumy and Kharkiv. It will also most likely demand international recognition of its territorial grabs in the Crimea and the Donbass regions," Alexseev adds.
The Alaska meeting occurs amidst Trump's increasingly firm position regarding Russia.
The US leader has approved further arms for Ukraine, a move he previously opposed during his presidential campaign. He has threatened significant new sanctions against Moscow should a ceasefire not be in place by early September.
Trump has also threatened tariffs against buyers of Russian oil, especially India, whose imports to the US have been slapped with punitive 50 per cent tariffs, partially over buying discounted Russian energy.
Trump has accused New Delhi of fuelling the Ukraine war with its purchases of Russian oil. India, along with China, is one of the biggest customers of Russian crude.
On Monday, Zelenskyy also echoed Trump's call, telling Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi that "it is necessary to limit the export of Russian energy, particularly oil, to reduce its potential and ability to finance the continuation of this war."
Security arrangements akin to those of Israel or Taiwan
Russia may be amenable to Trump's proposal of "land swapping". It also maintains a future peace treaty must ensure Ukraine's neutrality, dropping NATO ambitions and limiting its military size.
Will Ukraine agree to this demand in a potential deal?
Omelicheva argues that Ukraine's aspiration to join NATO is enshrined in its constitution, and reversing this course would require an act of Parliament that reflects the will of the Ukrainian people.
"It is highly unlikely that either the legislature or the public would willingly abandon a critical security guarantee designed to protect the country from existential threats."
"This is the key issue for any lasting peace deal," says Alexseev.
"Russia's record of consistent violations of ceasefires since the 2014 Donbass war, culminating in the all-out unprovoked invasion of 2022, makes it impossible for Ukrainians to trust any deal that would not entail tangible security guarantees," he says.
Alexseev stresses that any security guarantee to Ukraine by the US and Europeans should also be a lot stronger than the US and British pledges to protect Ukraine's territorial integrity under the 1994 Budapest Memorandum when Ukraine gave up the world's third largest arsenal of nuclear weapons.
"If not NATO membership, Ukraine will need guarantees on the order of security pacts such as the ones the US has with Israel or Taiwan."
