Ukrainian servicemen prepare to fire towards Russian positions in the Zaporizhzhia region of Ukraine on Thursday.Evgeniy Maloletka/The Associated Press
U.S. President Donald Trump said he will meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska late next week and called for the “swapping of territories” between Russia and Ukraine to end their war.
Mr. Trump announced the “highly anticipated meeting” on Truth Social Friday, which marked the deadline he had set for Mr. Putin to agree to a ceasefire in the conflict or face stepped-up U.S. sanctions. Mr. Trump said the sit-down would take place on Friday, Aug. 15.
The meeting is the second time in as many months that Mr. Trump has hosted on U.S. soil a world leader wanted for war crimes by the International Criminal Court. The President met in July at the White House with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whom the court accuses of murder in connection with the invasion of Gaza.
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The U.S. is not a party to the International Criminal Court – unlike Canada and 124 other countries – meaning the Americans have no obligation to arrest Mr. Putin when he is on their territory.
Earlier on Friday, Mr. Trump suggested a peace deal would involve Ukraine giving up land to Russia. It was unclear how this would happen, as Ukraine has adamantly refused to cede any of its territory while Mr. Putin has reportedly recently escalated his annexation demands, including asking for land not currently occupied by his military.
“There will be some swapping of territories to the betterment of both, but we’ll be talking about that either later or tomorrow or whatever,” Mr. Trump told reporters at the White House.
Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President Donald Trump shake hands before a meeting in Helsinki in July, 2018, during Trump’s first term.BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP/Getty Images
He also implied that he was turning up pressure on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
“He’s not authorized to do certain things, I said ‘Well, you’re going to have to get it fast because we’re getting very close to a deal,’” Mr. Trump said. “President Zelensky has to get all of his – everything he needs – because he’s going to have to get ready to sign something.”
Mr. Trump did not specify what Mr. Zelensky has to get authorization for or from whom. Mr. Zelensky has previously pointed out that giving up Ukrainian territory would be against the country’s constitution, which can only be changed after a referendum.
The U.S. President won last year’s election in part on a pledge to end the Russia-Ukraine War immediately. But he has so far been unable to broker a peace agreement and has become frustrated with the Kremlin. “He’s just tapping me along,” he said of Mr. Putin this past spring.
Mr. Trump, however, has been reluctant to impose more sanctions on Moscow and has suggested he does not want the U.S. to spend any more money on Ukraine’s defence. Last month, he initially gave Mr. Putin a 50-day deadline to stop the fighting, which he later shortened to this Friday. In the interim, the Russian President has continued his invasion of Ukraine, including deadly missile attacks on civilians in Kyiv.
During the previous Biden administration, the U.S. allocated US$175-billion in military and other aid to Ukraine and co-ordinated a slew of international sanctions on Russia.
Mr. Zelensky said on X Friday that “the Russians are ignoring” Mr. Trump’s ceasefire demand, keeping up a steady stream of drone strikes and bombings throughout the day.
On Friday, Bloomberg reported that Mr. Putin’s conditions for a ceasefire included recognition of Ukraine’s Donbas and Crimea regions as part of Russia. Moscow has occupied the latter since 2014 and has taken over much, but not all, of the former since Mr. Putin began his full-scale invasion in 2022.
Ukraine says its troops also continue to occupy a small piece of Russian territory in Kursk Oblast.
An explosion during a Russian drone strike in Kyiv on Friday.Gleb Garanich/Reuters
Igor Logvinenko, an international affairs expert at Occidental College in Los Angeles, said that not only do Mr. Putin’s terms go far beyond the basis for a ceasefire but that they would be impossible for any Ukrainian leader to accept.
“Those are not ceasefire negotiation terms, they’re capitulation demands,” he said. “They’re a non-starter in Ukraine. There are no terms that are acceptable to Russia that any reasonable Ukrainian politician would survive politically.”
Prof. Logvinenko said Mr. Trump appears to have overestimated his ability to handle Mr. Putin. “Whatever this bromance is, it’s finally hitting the reality of what’s happening on the ground and the intractable issues that neither side wants to give in on.”
Michael O’Hanlon, a defence and national security expert at the Brookings Institution, expressed hope that Mr. Trump’s tough rhetoric on Mr. Putin meant that he would have to follow through on his threats of serious consequences.
“Absent a good reason, he will look indecisive or weak if he walks away from the meeting with Putin with nothing, yet fails to toughen sanctions and tariffs nonetheless,” Mr. O’Hanlon wrote in an e-mail.
Still, he said, Mr. Putin might find a way to keep stringing Mr. Trump along. “The most likely outcome is perhaps a small concession by Putin (fewer attacks on cities, for example, for a while) in exchange for no toughening of sanctions.”
Republican Senator Lindsey Graham has tabled a bill that would impose 500 per cent tariffs on countries that buy Russian oil and gas in a bid to further isolate the Russian economy. Legislators did not vote on it before heading home for the summer, leaving it up to Mr. Trump what, if anything, to do if Mr. Putin remains intransigent.
Last week, Mr. Trump said he would double tariffs on India to 50 per cent, in part as a punishment for buying Russian oil. He also holds leverage over Mr. Zelensky, as not all of the military aid approved by Congress has been sent to Ukraine. Last month, the Pentagon briefly held back some missile defence systems meant for Kyiv.
Both Mr. Putin and Mr. Zelensky tried to shore up international support this week. Mr. Putin spoke with President Xi Jinping of China and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Mr. Zelensky, meanwhile, telephoned the leaders of Poland, the Czech Republic and Latvia. Both Mr. Putin and Mr. Zelensky had conversations with South African President Cyril Ramaphosa.