A rchive Date
[ 21-08-2025 ]
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[https://nationalpost.com/opinion/adam-zivo-putin-outplays-trump-yet-again?itm_source=index
Putin outplays Trump yet again
NATO-style Security guarantees are promising, but Ukraine is being asked give up eastern territory that serve as defence shield
By Adam Zivo Published Aug 17, 2025
U.S. President Donald Trump claimed that he would negotiate a ceasefire deal for Ukraine at his Alaska summit last Friday. Yet, he failed and found himself once again outplayed by Russian President Vladimir Putin, who got much of what he wanted from the White House while conceding fairly little. Though Trump now seems to ceding a key Ukrainian province in exchange for giving Kyiv NATO-style security guarantees, the details here, or lack thereof, warrant a great deal of pessimism.
Expectations for the summit were low from the beginning amongst the Ukrainians I spoke with in Odesa, as well as influential online political commentators in the country, as many suspected that the event’s existence would simply delay harsher sanctions against Russia and its trading partners.
While European and American lawmakers have been eager to economically punish Moscow for months, Trump has intervened whenever they have moved to do so and has repeatedly insisted that, based on his friendly conversations with Putin, Ukraine and its allies should commit to peace talks instead.
But these talks have invariably failed, thanks to Russia’s unreasonable demands. Among other things, Putin has insisted that a negotiated settlement can only be achieved if Ukraine cedes four of its provinces - Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson - and that the Ukrainians scrap all of their international security alliances and “demilitarize” themselves by shrinking their armed forces to a token size.
Such concessions would guarantee Ukraine’s future vassalization or full annexation, especially because most of the current frontlines, and ergo most of the country’s defensive fortifications, are located within these provinces. As such, Kyiv has never been in a position to agree to Russia’s maximalist terms: how can a government willingly accede to its nation’s future dismemberment?
While Ukraine’s European allies have long understood that Putin is not serious about peace, Trump seemed to only grasp this fact last month. Citing Russia’s relentless attacks upon Ukrainian civilians, the American president’s rhetoric towards Russia abruptly soured. He accused Putin of spewing “bulls–t” and “meaningless” talk, and issued an ultimatum: sign a ceasefire by early August or face the consequences.
But then the deadline came and nothing really happened.
Rather than impose 100 per cent tariffs on Russia and its trading partners, as had been threatened, Trump only slapped a 25 per cent tariff on India, the world’s second-largest purchaser of Russian oil and gas, while sparing other customers. He concurrently announced his Alaska summit, and argued that further sanctions should wait amid renewed peace talks.
The development was perplexing: why had Trump suddenly regained his faith in Putin? And why did he have any reason to believe that a deal could be found if Russia had not given any indication that it would seriously rethink its demands? Yet his optimism seemed earnest, as his behind-the-scenes lobbying for a Nobel Peace Prize intensified around this time.
In the lead up to the summit, U.S. officials reportedly offered Russia access to Alaska’s natural resources - especially rare earth minerals - if a peace deal were signed. The event’s guest list suggested that Russo-American economic cooperation might be a major theme, echoing Trump’s previous fixation on the potential value of a trade alliance.
Perhaps the idea was to strike some grand bargain - one that could not only bring peace to Europe, but peel Russia away from China and lock Beijing out of the Arctic. If these were indeed the White House’s aspirations, they were quickly shattered.
On the day of the summit, Putin and his entourage were given a red carpet entrance. They allegedly came armed with a trove of historical documents which, according to them, showed that Ukraine is an artificial nation and that Ukrainians are, in fact, nothing more than wayward Russians. Foreign Affairs Minister Sergey Lavrov wore jeans and a sweater bearing the letters “CCCP” (cyrillic for “USSR”) - curiously, no one hectored him for not wearing a suit.
The symbolism was clear: Moscow’s representatives did not recognize the cultural, let alone political, independence of Ukraine, and remained nostalgic for Russia’s erstwhile Soviet glory, imperium and all.
At the beginning, everyone seemed happy. The two presidents shared a short, private limousine ride together, with Trump smiling like a child meeting his favourite celebrity. Then the delegations came together for their private negotiations and, although the Kremlin had originally estimated that these talks would last six or seven hours, something evidently went wrong: just three hours later, both sides walked out, stonefaced.
The presidents held a “press conference” where no questions were permitted. No ceasefire deal had been made, but Trump said that they had come to an “agreement” on unspecified points, while Putin alluded to an “understanding” between the two men. Putin dominated the podium, speaking for eight minutes and expounding on Alaska’s Russian history, while Trump, normally so loquacious, spoke for only three.
Documents discovered in the public printer of a nearby hotel indicate that the White House had originally planned to host a luncheon “in honor of his excellency Vladimir Putin,” but that was abruptly cancelled. The Russians flew home early, but nonetheless saw the meeting as a victory: had they not shown that they were equals to the Americans, and that they were not, in fact, diplomatically isolated?
Although Trump had said, on his way to Alaska, that he would impose “severe consequences” if Putin did not agree to an immediate ceasefire, none materialized. In fact, after the summit, Trump pivoted and denied that a ceasefire deal was necessary at all, and argued that Russia and Ukraine should focus on negotiating a full peace agreement first, and that other countries should refrain from imposing new sanctions while talks continue.
This was a huge win for Moscow, which has long insisted that any ceasefire should come at the end of the peace process, not the beginning, presumably so Russian forces can press their advantages and weaken Kyiv’s negotiation position. So not only did Trump save the sputtering Russian economy from tougher sanctions for the foreseeable future, he also reframed the entire peace process to better suit Moscow’s needs.
After the summit, Trump briefed Zelenskyy and several allied leaders on Putin’s demands. He reportedly told them that Putin had proposed freezing the frontlines in Zaporizhzhia and Kherson in exchange for receiving full control of the Donetsk province - which is a plan that Trump reportedly now supports.
But this would be disastrous. Ukraine spent the past 11 years establishing a “fortress belt” of heavily fortified cities and towns in the centre of Donetsk, which now serve as the core of the country’s defences. Russia has tried to conquer this belt for over a year, but has seen only very slow and costly progress. Ceding this territory would leave central Ukraine exposed, and would require Kyiv to quickly rebuild its fortifications in bordering provinces where the terrain is poorly suited for defence. In contrast, the benefits of freezing the frontlines in Zarporzhzhia and Kherson would be marginal, as Russia does not have any momentum there.
To put things another way: though Putin slightly diluted his demands (by focusing on Donetsk, and not all four provinces), the consequences of his proposal would remain catastrophic. There is no reason why Ukraine should give away its shield for nothing.
However, on Sunday, U.S. Special Envoy Steve Witkoff said that during the Alaska summit Putin agreed to have the United States and European countries provide Ukraine with NATO-style security guarantees, without formal NATO membership, as part of the peace deal. Also Sunday, U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer praised the plan, though U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio was less definitive on specific American security guarantees. Further complicating things, reporting by Axios suggests that Putin proposed including China as a security guarantor.
While this sounds promising, the devil will be in the details. Back in early 2022, during the first round of Istanbul peace talks, Moscow proposed establishing a coalition of security guarantors for Ukraine in exchange for Kyiv’s demilitarization and Russian annexation of Ukrainian land. The caveat, though, was that Russia wanted to be one of these guarantors, and wanted a system where any guarantor could veto the military intervention of any other member. In other words: these security guarantees would have been useless - a scam, really - because Moscow would have had control over whether they were exercised.
Given the inconsistent messaging coming out of Washington and the allegation that Russia wants China, its close ally, inserted into any security assurances for Ukraine, a heaping dose of skepticism is warranted - at least until more details are disclosed. Promises can be cheap, misleading and rife with loopholes. This is a reality that Ukrainians sorely understand, given that, in 1994, they gave up their nuclear arsenal in exchange for American and Russian security guarantees that turned out to be useless.
With Zelenskyy now slated to visit the White House on Monday, one has to wonder: will the United States embrace appeasement, and, if so, will it expect Ukraine to do the same?
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