Photograph Source: The White House – Public Domain

Putin and Trump last week agreed to meet at a location in Alaska. Indications are the meeting will occur as soon as August 15, 2025 or soon after. In other words, in just days. Or perhaps a week or so at most.

If we’re to believe the US media, the meeting is about Trump and Putin negotiating an end to the war in Ukraine. But does the meeting signify the start of serious negotiations and the beginning of the end of the war in Ukraine? Not necessarily. There are other possible interpretations for the meeting in Alaska:

A meeting with Putin may provide the cover for Trump to finally start an actual US withdrawal from the conflict. After all, during the past nine months the US has continued to send weapons, money and provide extensive military assistance to Ukraine. While calling for Ukraine and Russia to stop fighting, the US has continued to participate directly and deeply in the conflict providing general tactical planning by high level US officers, intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance, communications, missile targeting, manning of technical equipment like Patriot systems, training, and so on. Perhaps Trump wants to withdraw from these activities. To do so he needs to show some kind of agreement with Putin as a justification.

Another interpretation is that the meeting is really about restarting discussions on future US-Russia economic relations. These began in the months before April 2025, showed some initial progress, but then were quietly suspended. Trump would no doubt like to ink some deals on Russian commodities, especially rare earths that China has recently decided not to export to the US. And perhaps deepening US-Russia economic relations sends a message to the Chinese the US is intensifying efforts to split Russia from it.

Yet another interpretation is that the purpose of the meeting is to get Putin to agree to a general ceasefire by conceding a ‘piece of the pie’, i.e. of one or two Ukraine provinces in the east where the fighting is mostly occurring. Russia has already taken all of the Lughansk province. Perhaps Trump will offer to Russia what it already has in Lughansk. More likely is the offer of the second province of Donetsk where Russia has been gaining territory daily but has only captured perhaps 60% of the total territory. By offering him the two provinces in exchange for a general ceasefire everywhere before starting negotiations on other issues, Trump is revising his original ‘Kellogg Plan’ that called for ceasefire everywhere in exchange for nothing—which Russia has consistently rejected since Trump took office.

A fourth interpretation is that the meeting is just another clever ruse by NATO and the west to lull Russia into a general ceasefire, with no intention of Ukraine actually withdrawing forces anywhere. According to this interpretation, Trump will offer a verbal or even written promise that Ukraine will then negotiate in good faith. But if this case, it is a repeat of the 2015 Minsk agreement signed by Ukraine and by Germany and France on behalf of NATO, the purpose of which was to convince Russia to halt its destruction of Ukraine’s forces at Debaltsovo that year which save the Ukraine army from defeat. The Minsk agreement of 2015 provided Ukraine and NATO with a diplomatic victory........

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