Kyiv, Ukraine – Taras, a seasoned Ukrainian serviceman recovering from a contusion, expects “no miracles” from United States President Donald Trump’s August 15 summit along with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin.
“There’s going to be no miracles, no peace deal in per week, and Putin will attempt to make Trump imagine that it’s Ukraine that doesn’t need peace,” the fair-haired 32-year-old with a deep brown tan acquired within the trenches of japanese Ukraine, advised Al Jazeera.
Taras, who spent greater than three years on the entrance line and stated he had lately shot down an explosives-laden Russian drone barging at him in a subject lined with explosion craters, withheld his final title in accordance with the wartime protocol.
Putin needs to dupe Trump by pandering to the US president’s self-image as a peacemaker to keep away from additional financial sanctions, whereas the Russian chief seeks a serious army breakthrough in japanese Ukraine, Taras stated.
“Putin actually believes that till this winter, he’ll seize one thing sizeable, or that [his troops] will break by way of the entrance line and can dictate phrases to Ukraine,” Taras stated.
Because the Trump administration trumpets the upcoming Alaska summit as a serious step in the direction of securing a ceasefire, Ukrainians — civilians and army personnel — and consultants are largely pessimistic in regards to the outcomes of the assembly between the US and Russian presidents.
That is partly due to the details on the bottom in japanese Ukraine. Earlier this month, Russia intensified its push to grab key areas within the southeastern Donetsk area, ordering hundreds of servicemen to conduct nearly-suicidal missions to infiltrate Ukrainian positions, guarded 24/7 by buzzing drones with evening and thermal imaginative and prescient.
Up to now three months, Russian forces have occupied some 1,500sq km (580 sq. miles), principally in Donetsk, of which Russia controls about three-fourths, in keeping with Ukrainian and Western estimates primarily based on geolocated pictures and movies.
The tempo is barely sooner than prior to now three years.
Inside weeks after Moscow’s full-scale invasion started in February 2022, Russia managed some 27 p.c of Ukrainian territory. However Kyiv’s daring counteroffensive and Moscow’s incapacity to carry onto areas across the capital and in Ukraine’s north resulted within the lack of 9 p.c of occupied lands by the autumn of 2022.
Russia has since re-occupied lower than 1 p.c of Ukrainian territory, regardless of dropping tons of of hundreds of servicemen, whereas pummelling Ukrainian cities nearly day by day with swarms of drones and missiles. Russia’s push to occupy a “buffer zone” in Ukraine’s northern Sumy area failed as Kyiv’s forces regained a lot of the occupied floor.
Ukraine additionally controls a tiny border space in Russia’s western Kursk area, the place it began a profitable offensive in August 2024, however misplaced most of its positive factors earlier this 12 months.
The scepticism in Ukraine over the Alaska assembly can be pushed by studies of what the US may provide Putin to attempt to persuade him to cease combating.
Experiences — not denied by Washington — counsel that Trump may provide Moscow full management of Donetsk and the smaller neighbouring Luhansk area. In trade, Moscow might provide a ceasefire and the freezing of the entrance line in different Ukrainian areas, in addition to the retreat from tiny toeholds in Sumy and the northeastern Kharkiv area, in keeping with the studies.
However to surrender Donetsk, Kyiv must vacate a “fortress belt” that stretches some 50km (31 miles) alongside a strategic freeway between the cities of Kostiantynivka and Sloviansk.
Donetsk’s give up would “place Russian forces extraordinarily effectively to resume their assaults on far more favorable phrases, having averted an extended and bloody battle for the bottom,” the Institute for the Examine of Struggle, a US assume tank, stated on Friday.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has stated that Ukraine is not going to “reward” its land, and that it wants agency safety ensures from the West.
“We don’t want a pause in killings, however an actual, lengthy peace. Not a ceasefire a while sooner or later, in months, however now,” he stated in a televised tackle on Saturday.
Some civilian Ukrainians maintain a depressing view on the prospects of peace, believing that Kyiv’s tilt in the direction of democracy and presumed eventual membership within the European Union, and Moscow’s “imperialistic nature” arrange an equation that stops a sustainable diplomatic resolution.
“The struggle will go on till [either] Ukraine or Russia exist,” Iryna Kvasnevska, a biology instructor in Kyiv whose first cousin was killed in japanese Ukraine in 2023, advised Al Jazeera.
However the lack of belief within the Alaska summit for a lot of Ukrainians additionally stems from a deep lack of religion in Trump himself.
Regardless of Trump’s current change in rhetoric and rising public dissatisfaction with Moscow’s reluctance to finish the hostilities, the US president has a historical past of blaming Ukraine – for the struggle and its calls for of its allies – whereas a few of his negotiators have repeated Moscow’s speaking factors. It’s also unclear whether or not Zelenskyy can be invited to a trilateral meet with Trump and Putin in Alaska, or whether or not the US will go forward and search to form the way forward for Ukraine with out Kyiv within the room.
“Trump has allow us to down a number of occasions, and the individuals who imagine he gained’t do it once more are very naive, if not silly,” Leonid Cherkasin, a retired colonel from the Black Sea port of Odesa who fought pro-Russian rebels in Donetsk in 2014-2015 and suffered contusions, shrapnel and bullet wounds, advised Al Jazeera.
“He did threaten Putin quite a bit in current weeks, however his actions don’t comply with his phrases,” he stated.
He referred to Trump’s pledges throughout his re-election marketing campaign to “finish the struggle in 24 hours”, and his ultimatums to impose crippling sanctions on Russia if Putin doesn’t present progress in a peace settlement.
Trump’s ultimatum to Putin, initially 50 days lengthy, was decreased to “10 to 12 days” and ended on Friday, at some point after the Alaska summit was introduced.
Army analysts agree that Putin is not going to bow to Trump’s and Zelenskyy’s calls for.
In the meantime, the actual fact of a face-to-face with Trump heralds a diplomatic victory for Putin, who has grow to be a political pariah within the West and faces youngster abduction prices which have led the Worldwide Prison Courtroom to situation an arrest warrant in opposition to him. Putin final visited the US for bilateral conferences in 2007, solely coming for UN summits after that, however not visiting the nation because the warrant was issued.
“What’s paramount for Putin is the very fact of his dialog with Trump as equals,” Nikolay Mitrokhin, a researcher with Germany’s Bremen College, advised Al Jazeera.
“I feel the deal can be restricted to an settlement on cessation of air strikes, and Putin will get three months to finalise the land operations – that’s, to grab the [entire] Donetsk area.”
An air ceasefire might profit Russia, as it could actually amass hundreds of drones and tons of of missiles for future assaults. The ceasefire will even cease Ukraine’s more and more profitable drone strikes on army websites, ammunition depots, airfields and oil refineries in Russia or occupied Ukrainian areas.
“Then [Putin] will, in fact, idiot Trump, and all the things will resume,” Mitrokhin stated.