Kyiv, Ukraine
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Both sides have held a Trump-Putin meeting for some time. So why would either party want it to happen now?
U.S. President Donald Trump hopes to give him the strength of his personality to reach a deal that Moscow's six-month stubbornness may be overcome by face-to-face with the Kremlin's head. Although his recent Russian counterparts have shown that the Russian and Ukrainian people are one of them, and that no matter where the Russian soldiers are, it is Russia.
Russian leader Vladimir Putin hopes to reject an unconditional ceasefire proposal in May, instead rejecting two unilateral, short and irrelevant pauses in May. His troops surged on the frontlines on the summer offensive end, which might have brought him close enough to his goal that the status quo of the autumn negotiations in the war was quite different.
If the two do meet, then an obvious U.S. goal is to hold a trilateral summit with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to discuss the end of the war – the form of the Russian summit rejected in Istanbul in May. Russia's purpose is likely to cause Putin to drag Trump back to the track of Moscow's narrative.
Still, a summit could occur this time (previously surfaced, before delayed), which raises questions about how the war might end. Here are five possible scenarios:
Extremely impossible. Putin will agree that a ceasefire on the frontline remains the same – the United States, Europe and Ukraine have demanded a moratorium in May under the threat of sanctions, and Russia rejected it. Trump withdrew from sanctions and favored low-level talks in Istanbul. Earlier this year, a 30-day ceasefire against energy infrastructure was met with limited or successful.
The Kremlin is currently turning the incremental growth on the frontline into a strategic advantage, and when it reaches its height, it now makes no sense to stop this progress. Even the threat of secondary sanctions against China and India will not change this immediate military calculus for the rest of the summer. Putin didn't want to fight until October at least because he won the victory.
2. Pragmatism and more talk
Later, these talks may reach a consensus that the seal of Russian earnings, at the beginning of winter, freezes the frontlines military and literally around October. By then Putin might have occupied the eastern towns of Pokrovsk, Kostiantinivka and Kupiansk, which gave him a solid place in winter and reunitement. Russia can then fight again in 2026, or use diplomacy to make these gains permanent. Putin may also uplift the election ghost in Ukraine – delayed by the war and briefly raised Trump’s conversation – questioning Zelensky’s legitimacy and even disappointing him is a more pro-Russian candidate.
In this case, U.S. and European military aid to Ukraine could help them minimize concessions on the front lines in the coming months and lead Putin to seek conversation as his army failed to deliver again. Pokrovsk may be threatened, other strongholds in eastern Ukraine may be threatened, but Ukraine may see slow progress in Russia as before, and the Kremlin may even feel sanctions and an overheated economy.
As part of security guarantees, European powers have developed advanced plans for the “reliance force” to be deployed to Ukraine. Thousands of European NATO forces could sit near Kiev and other major cities, provide logistical and intelligence assistance to Ukraine during reconstruction and generate enough deterrence to make Moscow decide to leave the frontline. This is the best Ukraine can hope for.
If Putin does not stop and diplomacy fails? The next options are not that clean:
4. Ukraine and NATO disasters
Putin can correctly see the cracks in Western unification after the summit with Trump, which improved U.S.-Russia relations but left Ukraine to boycott it. Europe can do its best to support Kyiv, but it cannot be balanced without the US substitute. Putin may see a tiny gain in eastern Ukraine transformed into a slow rout of Ukrainian troops in the open terrain between Donbas and Denipro, Zaporizhiya and the capital. Ukraine’s defense could prove to be weak, and Kiev’s military human resources crisis turned into a political disaster when Zelensky demanded wider mobilization to support the country’s defense.
The security of Kyiv is once again dangerous. Putin's troops move forward. Europe's power assessment is better to fight against Ukraine's Russia within the actual EU territory. But European leaders ultimately lack the political task of participating in a land war in Ukraine. Putin moves forward. NATO failed to provide a unified response. This is a nightmare for Europe, but it has become the end of sovereign Ukraine.
Russia could be disappointed, spending thousands of soldiers' lives a week to earn relatively small gains and seeing sanctions erode his alliance with China and earning income from India. Moscow's sovereign wealth fund financial reserves may disappear and its income will decline. Dissent among the Moscow elites could be a refutation of diplomatic foreign-road vehicles in the Kremlin's war of choice, in favor of military obsession and unsustainable proxy conflict with NATO. Trump became a lame duck, and after the midterm elections returned to traditional foreign policy norms, the United States focused on opposing traditional foreign policy norms in Moscow and its supporter Beijing.
In this case, the Kremlin may encounter moments of mediocre inconvenience to reality and economic hardship for its own people, making it toxic. Similar poverty politics calculus ultimately maintained the fruitless occupation of Afghanistan by the Soviet Union in another chosen war. Similar moments of Kremlin weaknesses have already appeared in the Ukrainian war, like Putin's confidante, Yevgeny Prigozhin, who seemed to stumble upon a brief uprising against the capital.
Putin is strong on the surface until he appears vulnerable, and then he may be exposed to severe weakness. This happened before expansionists Soviet Russia and Putin. The problem with this situation is that it remains the greatest hope of Western strategists who are neither able to enter into the war in full swing to help Ukraine win nor Kiev’s ability to push Moscow’s military toward military.
None of these options are suitable for Ukraine. Only one of them regards Russia's actual defeat as a military force and a threat to European security. and None of them could meet Putin alone without Ukraine becoming part of any deal later.