Putin aims to lead Trump down the garden path, a sidelined Zelensky warns

Kyiv, Ukraine: With US President Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin preparing to meet in Alaska on Friday – ending the Russian leader’s years of diplomatic isolation with the West – Ukraine’s sidelined leader warned that the Kremlin would try to “deceive America” as Trump pushed to end the war.

President Volodymyr Zelensky is determined to demonstrate that his country is not the obstacle to peace by emphasising Ukraine’s willingness to accept an unconditional ceasefire, an idea that Russia has rejected.

He has cautioned that Putin will try to drive a wedge between the US, Ukraine and its European allies by putting forth demands that the Kremlin knows Ukraine cannot accept and then portraying Zelensky as the barrier to a deal.

“We understand the Russians’ intention to try to deceive America – we will not allow this,” Zelensky said in his evening address to the nation Sunday night.

But even as Ukraine and its European backers are pressing hard for Zelensky to be included in the negotiations, Trump suggested on Monday that he was already frustrated with the Ukrainian leader, seeming to claim that Ukraine was fighting a war of choice.

“I was a little bothered by the fact that Zelensky was saying, ‘I have to get constitutional approval’” to relinquish territory, Trump told reporters. “He’s got approval to go into war and kill everybody, but he needs approval to do a land swap.”

Trump said his sit-down with Putin would be a “feel-out meeting” intended to see if the Russian leader was ready to reach an agreement.

Ukraine and its European allies are worried about the bilateral negotiations, given maximalist demands by Putin that Ukraine says threaten its survival.

In a reflection of Europe’s concerns, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said he would convene a virtual summit on Wednesday to discuss the war and Trump’s forthcoming meeting with Putin. A German government spokesperson said several European leaders were set to participate, along with Zelensky, Trump and Vice President JD Vance. A spokesperson for the European Commission said its president, Ursula von der Leyen, would participate.

The stakes of the diplomacy are high. The bloodiest war on the continent since World War II has become deadlier, and the warring sides have expanded arsenals capable of striking deep into enemy territory.

European leaders and diplomats joined Ukraine in trying to frame the upcoming discussions in Alaska as a “test” for Russia, which has shown little sign that it is willing to pull back in its pummelling of Ukraine.

“On Friday, it is important to see how serious Putin is, and the only one who can do that is President Trump,” NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte told CBS News on Sunday.

In their public comments, Ukrainian and European officials have tried to strike a delicate balance. They have been careful in choosing their words, hoping not to offend Trump while at the same time attempting to shift the conversation back to the need for a complete ceasefire.

Ukraine has argued that a truce is needed before any substantive negotiations can take place – a position that the US also once held and one that Putin has dismissed as his forces have continued to make gains on the battlefield.

As he announced the talks scheduled for Friday, Trump suggested that there could be “some swapping of territories” that would precede a cessation of hostilities.

Zelensky has called that proposal a non-starter, saying Ukraine will not hand over any territory that Russia does not currently occupy.

If the idea of territorial concessions emerges intact from the Alaska talks and Ukraine rejects it, Ukrainian and European leaders worry that Russia will be able to convince Trump that Ukraine is behind the failure to strike a peace deal. The president has swung wildly in his stance on Ukraine, in the past blaming it for Russia’s invasion, but since then voicing some criticism of Putin.

The Kremlin has long attempted to weaken cohesion among the US, Europe and Ukraine “as part of a wider campaign to deter further Western support to Ukraine and distract from Russia’s intransigence regarding the peace process”, the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based research group, wrote in an analysis.

There is no evidence, the analysts wrote, that Russia is willing to compromise on its long-standing aims of preventing Ukraine from joining NATO, installing a Kremlin-friendly government in Kyiv and demilitarising Ukraine. Those aims, taken together, would amount to Ukraine’s “full capitulation”, they wrote.

Even if the meetings in Alaska lead to a ceasefire, the analysts warned, Russia will very likely “violate and weaponise” any agreements while repeating past patterns of blaming Ukraine.

Vance said on Fox News on Sunday that the US was trying to schedule a trilateral meeting among Trump, Putin and Zelensky, but that doing so was difficult.

Vance said that “one of the most important logjams is that Vladimir Putin said that he would never sit down with Zelensky”. The Ukrainian leader has repeatedly called for direct talks with Putin in any format, but Russia has refused.

Zelensky said on Sunday that while he valued “the determination with which President Trump is committed to bringing an end to the killings in this war”, the root cause of the bloody conflict was “Putin’s desire to wage war and manipulate everyone he comes into contact with”.

The Ukrainian leader pointed to a Russian strike on a bus depot in the southern city of Zaporizhzhia on Sunday that injured at least 22 people as further evidence that Moscow was not interested in peace.

“No deadlines, no expectations work on them – they do not want to stop the killings,” he said. “The only thing they are looking for is a way to kill Ukraine.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

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