As the summit between U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska approached, concerns grew regarding Ukraine’s fate. Assessments ranged from fears of a “new Yalta,” where the U.S. president might concede to the Kremlin’s desire for a Russian sphere of influence over Ukraine, to a “new Munich,” where Trump could abandon Ukraine and cease U.S. support for its defense. consequently, expectations were tempered among Ukrainian officials and their allies.

However, the summit did not result in a significant setback for Ukraine. Trump did not endorse Putin’s demands, and the United states continues to supply military aid to Ukraine.

Economic pressures on Russia

Russia’s war economy is showing signs of strain. Regions that once offered significant bonuses for military recruits are now reducing these payouts due to dwindling funds. The most obvious indicator is the country’s increasing budget deficit. Initially, the Kremlin aimed for a budget deficit of only 0.5 percent of the country’s GDP. However, by june, this target was revised to 1.8 percent of GDP. The situation continues to worsen; in the first seven months of this year, the budget deficit has already reached 2.2 percent of GDP.

Further U.S. sanctions could exacerbate these economic challenges. While the United States has not yet blacklisted major Russian energy companies like Rosneft and lukoil, such a measure would significantly impact the Kremlin’s financial resources. According to Alexandra Prokopenko, writing in Foreign Affairs, the Russian economy possesses sufficient resources to sustain Putin’s war efforts for another 18 to 24 months, but the situation is deteriorating.

The Russian economy has enough steam to support Putin’s war machine for another 18 to 24 months, but the situation is worsening.

Faced with these challenges, the Kremlin had to decide whether to maintain a rigid stance, disregarding Trump’s warnings, or to attempt to appease him. Ultimately, the Kremlin chose to arrange a meeting between the presidents to restore Trump and Putin’s personal relationship. The Kremlin invited witkoff to Moscow, presenting him with a seemingly acceptable agreement on August 7. They also proposed a meeting with Trump, which was quickly organized in Alaska, abandoning the usual Russian insistence on thorough readiness for leaders’ summits-a justification typically used to explain Putin’s reluctance to meet with Zelensky.

The Illusion of a Deal

Following a three-hour discussion between Putin and Trump, the scheduled working lunch at the Alaskan summit was canceled, and the press conference was reduced to brief remarks by each president. This indicated that Russia’s attempts to separate the Ukrainian conflict from other areas of cooperation and normalize relations had failed. However, this was the only notable misstep by Putin’s team.

On the central issue, Putin achieved his primary objective for the meeting: convincing Trump that the White House’s diplomatic efforts should focus on achieving a comprehensive resolution to end the war, rather than an immediate cease-fire, allowing the conflict to continue in the interim. Despite Trump’s earlier statements and the urging of European leaders and Zelensky before the summit, the White house has not imposed punitive measures on Russia for refusing to agree to a cease-fire.

Putin succeeded by mirroring Trump’s performative diplomacy with performative negotiations, effectively deceiving the Trump management into believing he was making genuine concessions. According to Trump and U.S. officials, including Witkoff, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and Vice President JD Vance, Putin suggested in Alaska that he was prepared to retract some of his maximalist demands-demands that were unrealistic from the start.

Instead of demanding the complete withdrawal of Ukrainian forces from the four regions claimed by Moscow, the Kremlin is now requesting that Kyiv cede only the Donetsk and luhansk regions, while accepting the current line of contact in Kherson and Zaporizhzhia. Putin also reportedly suggested trading other parts of Ukraine occupied by Russia, including areas of the Dnipropetrovsk, Sumy, and Kharkiv regions.

These proposed land swaps would require Kyiv to surrender a territory nearly ten times larger than what russia is willing to return. Furthermore, the quarter of the Donetsk region still under Ukrainian control, including the strategically important cities of Slovyansk and Kramatorsk, is the most heavily fortified area of the country, transformed into an extensive network of defensive installations since its recapture from Russian-backed separatists in 2014. For Zelensky,ceding this territory is virtually impossible for both political and military reasons.Public opinion polls indicate that Ukrainian society would not accept the surrender of its territory, and from a military standpoint, relinquishing western Donbas would essentially give the invader access to all of northern and central Ukraine, as there are no significant fortification lines beyond the “fortress belt” that putin seeks to have Kyiv abandon.

Still, following the summit, Trump accepted the logic of “land swaps” proposed by Putin, even though he stated that the decision would ultimately rest with Zelensky.

Security Guarantees Without Real Security

Another critical topic discussed in Alaska was the provision of postwar security guarantees for Ukraine. Witkoff told Fox News that “epic progress” had been made during the summit. He claimed that Putin had, for the first time, agreed to the concept of security guarantees for Ukraine, perhaps even stronger than NATO’s Article 5 collective defense clause-without requiring Kyiv to join NATO.

Moreover, according to Witkoff, Russia agreed to enact a law stipulating that it would not seize any more land from Ukraine after a peace agreement or “go after any other European countries.” These promises were hailed as “groundbreaking” by Trump’s team, and the U.S. president presented them as a significant achievement during his August 18 meeting at the White House with Zelensky and a group of European leaders.

Initially, there was optimism that a security guarantee could be established. Capitalizing on the ambiguous language of the Russian proposal, European leaders seized the opportunity to propose their own plan: the deployment of a European “reassurance force” in Ukraine after the war, with ten EU countries potentially contributing troops, while Trump promised unspecified “air support” from the United States.

A genuine peace agreement remains as elusive as ever.

Though, on August 20, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov dismissed the plan. He stated that Moscow’s concept of a security guarantee is not a series of bilateral commitments between Ukraine and the U.S. and European governments, similar to Article 5, but rather a consensus-based agreement guaranteed by the UN Security Council’s five permanent members-with the Kremlin possessing veto power. Essentially, he wants the fox to guard the henhouse. Furthermore, Moscow insists on severely limiting the Ukrainian armed forces-both in terms of numbers and equipment-as well as their ability to collaborate with foreign partners in arms procurement, intelligence sharing, weapons design, and training.

the “epic progress” turned out to be remarkably similar to the positions Russia held during the talks in Istanbul in the initial months following Moscow’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, which ultimately failed. As previously detailed by Samuel Charap and Sergey Radchenko, those negotiations collapsed partly due to Moscow’s and Kyiv’s inability to resolve the same disagreements over security guarantees. For Putin, ending Ukraine’s security partnership with the West remains a primary objective. Though, from Kyiv’s perspective, the size of its army and its ability to maintain ties with NATO’s militaries are essential for preserving sovereignty and are thus nonnegotiable.

Moreover, Ukraine has reasons to believe its negotiating position is stronger than it was in 2022. Unlike three years ago, European countries are now willing to provide the security guarantees Kyiv seeks-or at least they claim to be. More importantly, the level of cooperation between Ukraine and NATO now far exceeds what Putin feared before the war, precisely because of Russia’s invasion.The alliance is deeply involved in developing and testing weapons with Ukraine, training its army, and providing it with intelligence and arms, including those capable of striking deep within Russian territory.It is indeed unlikely that Kyiv would voluntarily abandon this partnership. Despite Trump’s desire to arrange a meeting between Putin and Zelensky, and also a trilateral summit to finalize the agreement, a genuine peace agreement remains as elusive as ever.

Continuing the fight

It is impossible to predict how Trump will address the significant differences between Russia’s positions and what Ukraine finds acceptable. Though, while Putin delays, Europe is actively developing its own plans. Europe’s Plan A involves carefully persuading Trump to recognize that the Kremlin is obstructing his peace efforts and that only pressure can incentivize Putin to compromise. If this plan succeeds, Putin’s procrastination could backfire, leading Trump to impose further sanctions on russia. The Europeans also plan to continue funding American weapons for Ukraine. in the week following the Alaskan summit, the Pentagon approved the sale of $850 million worth of equipment to Ukraine, including 3,350 Extended range attack Munition air-launched missiles with a range of 150 to 280 miles.

However, if the Europeans’ Plan A fails-if Trump does not blame Putin, or if he simply loses interest-they are developing their own Plan B. At a minimum, they intend to maintain current levels of military support to Ukraine and increase sanctions pressure on Russia, even though the EU’s sanctions capabilities are less potent than those of washington. If key european countries agree to increase the pressure, they could also share more of their existing military equipment with Ukraine, temporarily reducing the combat readiness of their own forces but sustaining Ukraine’s defense at this critical juncture.They could also provide long-term financial support to Kyiv by seizing the nearly $250 billion in state Russian assets frozen in the EU, enabling the purchase of U.S. weapons without further burdening European taxpayers. In theory, if the United States continues to provide intelligence, maintains sanctions, and allows the EU to purchase weapons for Ukraine, Europeans can organize themselves and play a crucial role in supporting Ukraine’s defense efforts until Putin’s war machine potentially runs out of offensive capacity in approximately 18 to 24 months.

Europe’s Plan B is unlikely to deter the Kremlin. Given Putin’s demonstrated resilience and determination to pursue an elusive victory, the Russian leader may simply instruct his generals and economic team to persevere. His government can manage the decline in public finances by reducing expenditures on education, health care, and infrastructure, as it has throughout the war. Putin is also prepared to forcibly tap into Russia’s vast manpower reserves if financial incentives diminish further. In July, the Kremlin introduced digital draft notices to compel more Russian men into the army; once a potential recruit receives an electronic notification of conscription, Russia’s borders are closed to him, and there are penalties for non-compliance. The Kremlin is clearly preparing funds and troops for a prolonged war, with its primary strategy being to outlast Ukraine militarily and economically.

However, the Kremlin does not appear to have a plan for the possibility that Russia will fail to translate its significant advantage in manpower and resources into a decisive breakthrough-as has been the case since the war began. Simply put, a plan for the possibility that Ukraine’s defense lines do not collapse.