Kyiv, Ukraine – Taras, a seasoned Ukrainian serviceman recovering from a contusion, expects “no miracles” from United States President Donald Trump’s August 15 summit together with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin.
“There’s going to be no miracles, no peace deal in every 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, instructed Al Jazeera.
Taras, who spent greater than three years on the entrance line and mentioned he had just lately shot down an explosives-laden Russian drone barging at him in a area coated with explosion craters, withheld his final title in accordance with the wartime protocol.
Putin desires 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 significant navy breakthrough in japanese Ukraine, Taras mentioned.
“Putin actually believes that till this winter, he’ll seize one thing sizeable, or that [his troops] will break by the entrance line and can dictate phrases to Ukraine,” Taras mentioned.
Because the Trump administration trumpets the upcoming Alaska summit as a significant step in the direction of securing a ceasefire, Ukrainians — civilians and navy personnel — and consultants are largely pessimistic concerning 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 night time and thermal imaginative and prescient.
Previously three months, Russian forces have occupied some 1,500sq km (580 sq. miles), largely in Donetsk, of which Russia controls about three-fourths, in accordance with Ukrainian and Western estimates primarily based on geolocated pictures and movies.
The tempo is barely quicker than up 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 lack of ability 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 virtually every 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 many 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 aspects earlier this 12 months.
The scepticism in Ukraine over the Alaska assembly can also be pushed by experiences of what the US may supply Putin to attempt to persuade him to cease combating.
Stories — not denied by Washington — counsel that Trump may supply Moscow full management of Donetsk and the smaller neighbouring Luhansk area. In trade, Moscow may supply 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 accordance with the experiences.
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 way more favorable phrases, having averted an extended and bloody battle for the bottom,” the Institute for the Examine of Battle, a US suppose tank, mentioned on Friday.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has mentioned that Ukraine will not “gift” 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 mentioned in a televised deal with 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 answer.
“The warfare will go on till [either] Ukraine or Russia exist,” Iryna Kvasnevska, a biology trainer in Kyiv whose first cousin was killed in japanese Ukraine in 2023, instructed 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 recent 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 warfare 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 will likely 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 received’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, instructed Al Jazeera.
“He did threaten Putin rather a lot in latest weeks, however his actions don’t observe his phrases,” he mentioned.
He referred to Trump’s pledges throughout his re-election marketing campaign to “finish the warfare 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 diminished to “10 to 12 days” and ended on Friday, sooner or later after the Alaska summit was introduced.
Navy analysts agree that Putin won’t 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 turn into a political pariah within the West and faces child abduction charges which have led the Worldwide Prison Court docket to subject an arrest warrant towards him. Putin final visited the US for bilateral conferences in 2007, solely coming for UN summits after that, however not visiting the nation for the reason that warrant was issued.
“What’s paramount for Putin is the actual fact of his dialog with Trump as equals,” Nikolay Mitrokhin, a researcher with Germany’s Bremen College, instructed Al Jazeera.
“I feel the deal will likely 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 could profit Russia, as it could actually amass hundreds of drones and tons of of missiles for future assaults. The ceasefire may even cease Ukraine’s more and more profitable drone strikes on navy websites, ammunition depots, airfields and oil refineries in Russia or occupied Ukrainian areas.
“Then [Putin] will, after all, idiot Trump, and every little thing will resume,” Mitrokhin mentioned.