By showing up in force, the seven European leaders not only seem to have quashed the question of whether they will “have a seat at the table” – turns out they will have many – but also seemingly found a way to engage Donald Trump that works to their advantage. Combined with a Ukrainian president dressed in what can perhaps be described as a “militarized version of Roy Orbison’s all black suit” and clearly conscious of needing to thank Trump and praise his leadership, Zelensky and European leaders executed what was a good day for well-prepared European diplomacy. At least for now, the risk of Trump explicitly siding with Russia and blaming Ukraine for failing to end the war appears over, and Trump remains engaged in the conflict while still supporting Ukraine, and the onus of staying on Trump’s “good side” might be shifting back to Vladimir Putin again after Anchorage.
So far so good for Ukraine and European leaders, as much worse possible (repeat) outcomes were avoided at the White House. Several additional elements of the process to end the fighting in Ukraine were reintroduced at the meeting, not least the reemergence of “security guarantees for Ukraine” as a key point of discussion. Trump appeared quite optimistic that a direct meeting between Zelensky and Putin is now feasible, and European leaders and Zelensky will be very satisfied that the issue of kidnapped Ukrainian children has returned to a prominent position in the Trump agenda.
There still appears to be some dissonance between Trump and some of the European leaders about whether a ceasefire (or “stopping the killing” as it is now termed) is required ahead of concrete peace negotiations, but perhaps crucially Ukrainian President Zelensky does not appear to insist on such an outcome. Hence, it looks plausible that several additional avenues of direct negotiations will (re)start soon, including preparatory negotiations for a possible Putin-Zelensky meeting and negotiations concerning security guarantees to Ukraine. These are concrete positive developments largely initiated by Trump’s meeting with Putin in Alaska, but it should be clear that despite Trump (and Zelensky) talking about these negotiations delivering results in “ten days to two weeks”, great skepticism must for several reasons follow any claim that concrete facts on the ground in Ukraine will change any time soon.
First of all, President Zelensky has very important reasons to engage constructively with any proposal Trump makes, irrespectively of what he actually thinks is realistic. Zelensky needs Trump engaged and cool on Putin and wants to conclude a large weapons deal with the United States – up to $100bn worth as part of any future security guarantees. This includes air defense and weapons Ukraine desperately needs, and initial partial delivery seems plausible even before other negotiations are fully concluded.
Secondly, the issue of “security guarantees” is not new, but was extensively – and futilely – discussed in 2022-23. The issues remain the same today. What constitutes credible “security guarantees” to Ukraine absent NATO membership? The weasel-like “Art 5-like guarantees” notion that is frequently mentioned is largely meaningless, as NATO Art 5 includes an actual expectation that the US will go to war to defend another NATO member. It is a treaty commitment ratified by two thirds majorities in the U.S. Congress, and not subject to any say from third (e.g. Russia) parties. Anything short of that level of commitments are not “Art 5-like”, but much weaker and potentially meaningless for Ukraine. It seems implausible that anyone seriously expect the U.S. to go to war with Russia, if it invaded Ukraine again. Art 5-like hence essentially means “smokescreen”, and may be unacceptable to Ukraine. Indeed, the only credible guarantee Ukraine will likely get from future Russian attacks is the strength of its own army (bolstered also by large U.S. weapons sales) and relatively soon EU membership to improve its economic capability to sustain such an army. This cannot happen in the short-term however, and hence a peacekeeping/deterrence force in Ukraine looks necessary if peace is to break out anytime soon. The question though is who will supply these troops? The U.S.? Other NATO members, including Turkey? And is such a force acceptable to Vladimir Putin? The Russian government has already ruled out Western troops in Ukraine.
Thirdly, while Trump has repeatedly mentioned a direct meeting between Zelensky and Putin, the Russian government has only talked about “raising the level of negotiating delegations” – recalling how low the level of Russian negotiators is (deputy minister level), this would be easy to achieve, but does not necessarily include presidential level meetings. Putin has repeated to date rejected meeting Zelensky directly. Again, it is far from obvious that any acceptance from Russia is present.
Overall therefore, bad outcomes were avoided at the White House meeting, and new areas of negotiations have been initiated. Nothing however at Monday’s summit serves to increase pressure on Russia to suddenly agree to any of the new initiatives started by Trump. Moscow retains the key diplomatic gain from the Anchorage meeting that additional U.S. economic sanctions now seem unlikely to ever be implemented. Absent “severe economic consequences” from such new sanctions, only battlefield setbacks and gradual economic decline from existing sanctions and Ukrainian strategic bombing looks like avenues to gradually increase the pressure on Putin to compromise. Until that happens, concrete negotiated progress towards an actual end of fighting in Ukraine should not be expected. Putin still has no real reason to, and remains extremely unlikely to, abandon the war path he has put Russia on since 2022.
This war unfortunately therefore looks likely to rage on for quite a while yet. 2026-27 seems a more realistic time point for substantive negotiations to begin than “another two week deadline” issued at the White House.
Jacob
