August 11, 2025
DIANE FRANCIS
Ukrainians are cynical about the August 15 Trump-Putin meeting in Alaska and for good reason. They are directly involved but excluded, along with their neighbors. Putin has ignored ceasefire demands, but Trump suggested a summit to finesse his embarrassment and, by so doing, has raised Putin’s stature. Worse, there’s loose talk about partitioning Ukraine even though that won’t work, as the 1938 Munich appeasement to Hitler demonstrated. Giving Nazis a sliver of Czechoslovakia to achieve “peace in our time” lasted only six months and ended up in WW2. Now, decades later, the solution is not only about ending the current war, but must be about permanently preventing another by building defenses in Ukraine and disabling Putin’s war machine. As one Kyiv parliamentarian said, “The only question is how to make sure Russia never attacks us again?” The answer is easy: To flood Ukraine with long-range weapons and ammunition, tariff Russian oil customers, build an Iron Dome, put destroyers in the Baltic and Black Seas, and mobilize troops to keep the peace permanently. But none of these are on the agenda, and yet, without such security, Putin will never stop, and Ukraine can never rebuild.
Instead, Putin wants to swap lands, a scheme that three Ukrainian generals have already categorically rejected. Commented one: “If Ukraine cedes territory without concessions or enforceable [security] guarantees, Russia would then seize fortified defensive lines and renew hostilities with impunity.” This is obvious stuff, but the problem is that President Trump is in a hurry and appointed a pal and Brooklyn developer named Steve Witkoff as his Special Envoy, who is overworked and unqualified. For example, Witkoff misunderstood Putin’s proposals last week and represented them to Trump as concessions. They were the opposite, which led one official to tell Germany’s newspaper BILD: “Witkoff doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”
Likewise, disinformation spread by the Kremlin that Ukrainians want to end the war on any terms is bogus. “We cannot do swaps because in a year, Russia will take it all back if there is no security guarantee,” said a Ukrainian historian. “It’s impossible politically and legally. Ukrainians are against surrendering because we are not talking about territories but about the existence of the Ukrainian people and the Ukrainian nation. Russians want to destroy us, influence Europe, and cripple NATO.”
Putin has intensified his blitzkrieg on Ukrainians since Trump took office, and yet Trump has responded by pulling his punches on oil tariffs because it would raise gasoline prices in the United States. This places Putin in the “catbird seat”. Russia Today wrote, “If the meeting goes ahead, the Russian President will come to it in a far stronger position than he did a few months ago. Back in the spring, Trump had cards to play: Senator Lindsey Graham’s sanctions package, fresh US arms deliveries to Ukraine, and proposals floated by French President Emmanuel Macron and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer about sending Western troops to Ukraine. Now it looks as if Trump is the one coming back to Vladimir Putin, driven by the failure of his oil embargo.”
Expectations about results are low, and RT suggested “probably a set of grand, dramatic, but ultimately empty promises – just enough for Trump to tick the ‘peacemaker’ box on his scoreboard, and just as quickly forgotten.” Fortunately, European allies have rallied behind Ukraine, rejected land swaps, and insisted that talks must include Kyiv and themselves. But the White House response is that there will be a trilateral meeting eventually with Ukraine, but this one will be strictly a Trump-Putin summit, as requested by Putin.
“The future of Ukraine cannot be decided without the Ukrainians who have been fighting for their freedom and security for over three years now,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky pointed out. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said European leaders “hope and assume” Zelensky will be involved in Friday’s summit. “We cannot accept that territorial issues between Russia and America are discussed or even decided over the heads of Europeans and Ukrainians. The path to peace in Ukraine cannot be decided without the participation of Ukraine. We remain committed to the principle that international borders must not be changed by force.”
When asked, Zelensky said he believed that Trump was being fully informed, and said, “Our arguments are being heard. The dangers are being taken into account.”
But once again, Ukraine is treated as a pawn, as is Europe. Trump denies a place at the table for the entire continent, even as he prepares to hand off to Europe all military and monetary responsibility for Ukraine. In real estate terms, this is equivalent to Trump giving a new “owner” a damaged building with troublesome squatters, but will dictate what the rents, tenants, and lease arrangements will be in perpetuity. It’s unacceptable in business or diplomacy.
Not surprisingly, Ukrainian and European officials made a counterproposal to US officials on August 9 that stipulated a complete ceasefire be implemented before any negotiations begin. It added that territorial exchanges must be reciprocal (meaning that if Ukraine pulls out of some regions, Russia must withdraw from others) and that Ukraine be given “robust security guarantees”. Europeans insist, correctly, that Washington and Moscow cannot make a deal over their heads without their input because they have agreed to be responsible for the post-summit security of Ukraine.
European Union foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas acknowledged the importance of Trump’s commitment to end the war and expressed concern about Russia in the future. “The US has the power to force Russia to negotiate seriously. Any deal between the US and Russia must have Ukraine and the EU included, for it is a matter of Ukraine’s and the whole of Europe’s security. A deal must not provide a springboard for further Russian aggression against Ukraine, the transatlantic alliance, and Europe.”
Europeans also reject Putin’s insistence that Ukraine be denied NATO membership, “even if that is not practical now”. They pledge to provide Ukraine with weapons and funds, which constitutes a historical sea-change: Europe stands united behind the defense of a sovereign and independent Ukraine because it acknowledges that Russia is an existential threat and because it agrees that Ukraine is a European nation.
This is in stark contrast to 1994, when Ukraine was bullied by President Bill Clinton, Britain, and Russia into surrendering its nuclear arsenal to Moscow in return for security commitments that were ignored. Putin invaded in 2014 and 2022, while the US and Britain did nothing to prevent that from happening. Since then, Kyiv has been an orphan, struggling to become a democracy and to overcome Russian interference and corruption. It has never surrendered to Russia’s criminal and genocidal regime, paid a terrible price, but finally, Europe stepped up, along with Washington, after the 2022 invasion.
In January, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen underscored this historical shift and need to end the war eloquently: “It is not only the destiny of Ukraine that is at stake. It is Europe’s destiny.”