Russian President Vladimir Putin is traveling to Alaska to meet with President Donald Trump to potentially negotiate the end to a conflict that experts believed would’ve ended more than three years ago.
Their highly anticipated meeting, which could change the trajectory of the conflict, comes just shy of the three and a half year anniversary of the start of Russia’s invasion.
Ahead of their conversation, Trump has publicly floated the idea that both sides will have to agree to swap land to end the conflict. It raises the possibility that Russia may get to keep some of the Ukrainian territory it currently holds or has annexed, but not necessarily all of it.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has said he would not willingly give up territory, which also wouldn’t be allowed under the country’s constitution.
The Russian military currently occupies less Ukrainian territory than it did in March 2022, just one month into the conflict. Russian forces held roughly 26.8% of Ukrainian territory at its peak on March 23 of that year, and as of this week, they control 18.98% of Ukraine, according to the Institute for the Study of War.
Russian forces are making incremental gains on the battlefield toward the Ukrainian city of Dobropillya, but at exorbitantly high costs.
“These are small-scale penetrations, and it’s at the tactical level,” George Barros, an expert with ISW, told the Washington Examiner. “For now, the Russians certainly will seek to try to mature these tactical successes into a larger breakthrough and a larger penetration and seize more territory, but it remains unclear if they would be successful in that endeavor.”
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said this week that Russia likely suffered around 60,000 soldiers killed or wounded in battle last month alone.
“Last year, Russia gained half of 1% of Ukraine’s territory in return for over 400,000 killed and wounded. This year, it’s taken a similar amount of territory for a further 200,000 killed and wounded,” U.K. Chief of Defence Staff Admiral Sir Tony Radakin said in an interview with the Center for Strategic and International Studies this week.
Ahead of the summit, “Putin is left with a dilemma – agree a ceasefire with his stated aims incomplete and little to show his people in return for the lost blood and treasure,” he added, “Or continue the war indefinitely and watch his country become even weaker and poorer chasing the false dream of subjugating Ukraine.”
The Russian military’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine began on February 24, 2022, and the prevailing belief among Western officials was that it would only take a matter of days or weeks before they captured Ukraine’s capital of Kyiv.
“At the time, we thought the Russian military was more capable than it has proven to be. We had limited confidence in Ukraine’s defensive strategy. The prevailing view was that Russia would take Kyiv within weeks, if not days. The choice was whether to back Ukraine or not,” Radakin added.
The war has led to more than one million “lives sacrificed” since Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022, he said.
With allies unsure of whether to back Ukraine, in a fight for the survival of the country, Ukrainian troops and volunteers alike not only prevented the capture of its capital but also forced Putin to fundamentally shift his short-term war objectives to focus on regions in southeastern Ukraine, close to Russia’s borders.
Russia annexed four regions — Zaporizhia, Kherson, Donetsk, and Luhansk in Ukraine in September 2022. They were widely disregarded internationally as sham referendums conducted under duress. Russia still does not entirely control the territory it annexed and wants to get it through the ceasefire negotiations.
The front lines of the war stretch more than 600 miles and go through the regions Russia annexed. Russia and Ukrainian forces have been fighting in the Donbas region since 2014. The war is concentrated in the eastern part of Ukraine, and while other areas within the country still come under attack,
The losses are staggering, and yet Putin has not shown a legitimate interest in ending the war. He believes he can wait out U.S. and European support for Ukraine and then capitalize.
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Ukrainian leaders and their European allies have stressed the importance of security guarantees in any agreement to prevent Russia from trying to restart its war when the military has had a chance to resupply and refit.
They “know that Putin’s desire is not just to take all of Ukraine, but to rebuild the Russian Empire, which includes parts of NATO, parts of the parts of the EU,” Amb. Kurt Volker, who previously served as the U.S. ambassador to NATO, told the Washington Examiner. “So they are very concerned that if Putin is just appeased in this aggression, he’s going to keep going. And they also know that if there is a ceasefire, it’s not a full peace, as you’re not changing Putin’s ambitions.”
Trump huddled with European leaders on Wednesday before he met with Putin.