The Art of the Deal president hopes he can broker peace.
Vladimir Putin is coming to America, despite the international warrant for the Russian president’s arrest, despite his years of hostile threats against NATO, and despite him showing no remorse for his invasion of a sovereign nation.
None of that matters to President Donald Trump, who announced Friday night that he would meet the globally shunned leader this Friday in Alaska.
What does matter to Trump is that he may be able to stop the bloodshed in Ukraine, the worst European conflict since World War II, fulfilling one of his biggest campaign promises.
Many of Washington’s European allies, Ukraine included, now worry that the Art of the Deal president could propose a solution to this conflict that makes concessions to the aggressor, including and especially a redrawing of Ukraine’s borders, when he sits with Putin.
Putin has made no commitments to cede territory or scale back Russia’s aggressive military campaign, and he has long claimed that Ukraine does not exist.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, in a video message yesterday, angrily condemned the notion that Trump and Putin alone could decide Ukraine’s future.
“Any decisions made against us, any decisions made without Ukraine, are at the same time decisions against peace,” he said.
Trump, who has grown frustrated in recent weeks with Putin’s lack of enthusiasm for compromise, had set a deadline for Russia to come to the negotiating table or risk increased tariffs and other punitive measures.
He even threatened to move nuclear-armed submarines closer to Russia, and vowed to punish India—one of the largest buyers of Russian oil—for helping bankroll Moscow’s energy sector.
Trump had promised to end the conflict before even setting foot inside the White House.
As months passed with no deal, Trump finally came to believe that Putin was to blame.
But signs that an end to hostilities between Ukraine and Russia was remotely plausible came the day after Trump’s envoy to the Middle East (and beyond), Steve Witkoff, returned early this month from Israel.
Through back-channel discussions with a close Putin ally, Witkoff—the real-estate executive who, like Trump, is more dealmaker than diplomat—received word of the Russian leader’s new willingness to discuss ways to end the fighting.
The political importance lies in whether the issue moves from public comment into formal action, party response, court record, election authority notice or administrative decision.
For public institutions and political groups, the next test is whether the issue remains a public argument or turns into a formal response, legal proceeding, administrative instruction or election-related communication.
