Discussions about ending Russia’s war in Ukraine began with a summit on Friday, August 15, in Anchorage, Alaska, between Presidents Trump and Putin. The meeting led to Russian demands for territorial annexations in the Donbas region and Ukraine ceding sovereignty over Crimea. On Monday, August 18, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and other European decision-makers, including the leaders of France, Italy, Germany, Finland, the UK, the EU, and NATO, met with President Trump in Washington, DC, to discuss Russia’s demands for peace in Ukraine, security guarantees, and possible further efforts to end the conflict. Former US Special Representative to Ukraine, Ambassador Kurt Volker, explains what these meetings mean and what is next for negotiations between Ukraine and Russia.
US Diplomatic Negotiations with Russia and Ukraine
What has Ukraine achieved from President Zelenskyy’s visit to the White House?
The achievables may actually sound like faint praise, but they are significant. In fact, President Zelenskyy had a meeting with President Trump at the White House, and that went well. They had a good rapport. We had other European leaders there. So you have the US, Ukraine, and Europe very much on the same page. That’s a good thing. There was no pressure on Ukraine in that meeting to give up territory. Everyone’s saying, “That’s up to you, and Putin. You have a separate meeting.” And Zelenskyy got President Trump’s support for direct talks with Putin to end the war. Those are all good things.
However, that is not ending the war, getting Putin to stop the aggression, getting Putin to withdraw from Ukrainian territory, and getting Putin to return Ukrainian children. Any substantive thing has not happened. But the dynamics of this were such that the bad things that could have happened did not happen, and the transatlantic unity that is essential was actually reinforced.
How does Zelenskyy’s visit to the White House impact the outcome of President Trump and Putin’s Alaska Summit?
It may, but not yet. If we dial back to Friday, and Trump’s meeting with Putin, Putin rejected an immediate ceasefire, which Trump had been calling for six months. He did not back off any of his maximalist demands, which include keeping all of the territory that he has seized by aggression in Ukraine and demanding that Ukraine voluntarily hand over even more. He also avoided any tough measures from the US in terms of sanctions or tariffs. So Putin had a great day again, avoiding anything rather than committing to anything. That is still Putin’s position, going into a bilateral meeting with Zelenskyy or a trilateral meeting with Zelenskyy and Trump, and a lot of that is clearly going to be unacceptable to Zelenskyy, to the Ukrainian people, to our European allies.
So that is not going to be the basis for an agreement. What President Trump can correctly say that he has done, is created the brackets. Now we know Putin’s maximalist position. Now we know what’s acceptable for Ukraine and Europeans. Now we negotiate. That’s a reasonable way to think about it, but Putin is going to have to move a lot for this to actually get anywhere. And I think that Putin has a lot more tricks up his sleeve that he will be deploying instead of moving a lot.
Diplomatic Pressure, Military Support, and Sanctions
To date, Putin has proven adept at managing costs imposed by the West. What key points of leverage should the US and Europe use now to strengthen the likelihood that Russia desists?
There are two key things that the US and the West need to focus on. The first one is ensuring that the reliable, visible, known pipeline of military support to Ukraine that American arms and ammunition, along with arms and ammunition from European allies and others, will continue to flow to Ukraine uninterrupted, and giving them what they need to be able to defend themselves, to have better air defenses and to go after Russia’s lines of communication. These are critical.
This is largely the case now. We’ve seen President Trump green-light European purchases of American arms and ammunition for transfer to Ukraine. He’s put NATO in charge of coordinating that, and there is now a pipeline of $90 billion that has been put out there in the meeting yesterday that can assure that that’s the case. So that’s one big signal to Putin that it’s not going to get easier.
The second thing is, on the economy, we have to make sure that Russia does not get sufficient funds from oil and gas revenues to keep the state going. We have to make sure oil prices stay low. We go after the continuing oil and gas sales with tariffs and secondary sanctions so that it dries up the willingness of people to participate with Russia in business, so that the revenue dries up, and Russia can’t afford the war. We have not done that yet. We’ve made some steps with the initial sanctions, some steps with moves against the shadow fleet, but we haven’t done enough there yet, and that needs to happen soon, too.
What do these talks mean for US sanctions legislation that is waiting in Congress?
Right now, the chances for this legislation moving forward decrease. Unfortunately, you have Marco Rubio, who spoke on some of the Sunday shows, saying or giving the perspective of the administration, which is that if you move forward with sanctions now, it makes it harder to reach a deal, and sets peace back by six to nine to 12 months.
I think that’s a completely backwards analysis. I think it takes the pressure off Putin rather than putting the pressure on; it makes it less likely to get a deal. But as Rubio described it, that’s where the administration’s head is right now. So they are not moving forward with these sanctions at this moment.
Ceasefire, Peacekeeping, and NATO
What is the likelihood of moving toward a ceasefire agreement following both rounds of negotiations?
I think it is a very interesting question. You had Trump back in February and early March, squeezing Ukraine relentlessly to get them to agree to an immediate ceasefire. And Ukraine did, and the Europeans lined up with that as well and said, “Okay, we will all go for a ceasefire.” And Trump’s been pushing this.
Putin consistently rejects the idea of a ceasefire. And then when Trump meets with Putin, he flips and says, “Okay, now we’re not going to do a ceasefire. We’re going to do a full agreement.” And everybody follows Trump. Zelenskyy follows Trump, the Europeans follow Trump, and say, “Okay, now we’re going to do a full agreement.”
Well, what’s going to happen is, Putin is going to make a full agreement impossible. He’s going to try to slip out of this bilateral Russia-Ukraine meeting. I just heard that Russia has said they will do the meeting, but it has to be in Moscow, which is a complete joke. You know, obviously, Zelenskyy is not going to take himself to Moscow; it has to be in some other place. And the Russians will put up other conditions as well, before such a meeting would take place. They will refuse to back off their maximalist demands and then blame Zelenskyy for being intransigent.
So this is not going to get anywhere. And I think we end up back at a ceasefire. And I think the more likely scenario is if we keep up the financial pressure on Russia, the low oil prices, maybe secondary sanctions, and we keep up the military support to Ukraine. I think Putin is going to conclude he needs a ceasefire by the end of the year, and that’s where we actually end up. But we’re going through this diplomatic dance right now, talking about an agreement as if we might really get there.
President Trump did not rule out sending US troops to Ukraine as part of peacekeeping efforts. Does this give momentum to prior European suggestions for a peacekeeping force?
It does. I think this was one of the big things that came out of the meeting on Monday was President Trump saying, “Okay, we will provide US support for a European-led reassurance force in Ukraine to deter future Russian attacks after a ceasefire.” That’s significant.
Now I think the form of US support is going to be enablers, intelligence logistics, maybe assistance with air defense, in extremis, maybe air support for European forces. I don’t think they’re going to have US troops parked there as part of a deterrence force. I could imagine Americans being there for training, equipping, and engaging directly with defense industries. That is quite possible, but not on the scale of a deployed American force there to deter Russia.
Another thing that I would mention in this area that no one’s talking about this yet, but along with my fellow CEPA colleague, Nico Lange, we wrote a piece for The Economist, “How NATO’s European members can help Ukraine and help themselves,” talking about some roles that NATO could play. Now that Trump has gotten NATO involved in acquiring and delivering weapons to Ukraine, we should think about some of the other things that NATO could do.
Probably the most important thing that NATO can do is work directly with Ukraine, get the experts and engineers and technicians to work with Ukraine to develop an integrated, layered strategic air defense capability. So what Ukraine has right now is a hodgepodge of systems. They’re doing the best they can with it, but they don’t have a common intelligence picture. They don’t talk to each other electronically. They don’t have an AI-driven system for deciding which weapon to use against which incoming device. A lot of this could be improved by better systems coordination with NATO. And frankly, NATO needs this for itself anyway, because we’re going to be facing the same threat from Russia as they continue to develop their own capabilities. So NATO needs this air defense.
The second thing that NATO could do is work with Ukraine on long-range targeting. Ukraine has a lot of domestically driven capabilities now for long-range targeting inside Russia that go after Russia’s military lines of communication. This could be extremely important in deterring future Russian attacks. So this is another thing where getting Ukraine the right coordination and intelligence and the right weapon systems so that they can deter future Russian attacks by threatening the logistics. That is another thing that NATO could be doing right now.
Ambassador Kurt Volker is a Distinguished Fellow at the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA).
Michael Newton is the Deputy Director for communications and operations at the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA).
Europe’s Edge is CEPA’s online journal covering critical topics on the foreign policy docket across Europe and North America. All opinions expressed on Europe’s Edge are those of the author alone and may not represent those of the institutions they represent or the Center for European Policy Analysis. CEPA maintains a strict intellectual independence policy across all its projects and publications.
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