Why Trump-Putin talks may not bring an end to the war

US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin are set to meet shortly. The Kremlin has confirmed that Putin and Trump will meet in the coming days. While the venue remains unconfirmed, there are reports that Trump and Putin will meet in the United Arab Emirates.

The development comes in the backdrop of Trump taking a harsher line on Russia in recent weeks. Trump had given Putin 10 to 12 days to end the war in Ukraine and threatened sanctions if he refused. Trump has previously praised Putin during and even before his time in office.

Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyacy has insisted that Europe must be involved in the peace process. There has been no summit of US and Russian leaders since Putin and Joe Biden met in Geneva in June 2021.

But what do we know about the meeting? And why do something the Trump Putin talks may not bring an end to the war?

Let’s take a closer look

But what do we know about the meeting?

A Kremlin aide has said that the meeting could be held as early as next week.

Yuri Ushakov said while the location for the summit has been chosen, it will only be revealed later on.

“At the request of the American side, both parties have effectively agreed to hold a high-level bilateral meeting in the coming days,” Ushakov told reporters.

Putin on Thursday, during a meeting with the UAE president, said it would be an “entirely suitable” venue for the meeting.

However, he did not confirm that the Gulf country play host to the two men.

Russia’s deputy UN Ambassador Dmitry Polyanskiy on Thursday said of the Trump-Putin meeting that “as far as I heard, there are a number of locations but they agreed to something that they don’t want to disclose.”

Trump on Thursday said he would meet Putin even if the Russian leader refused to meet Zelenskyy.

The development came after Trump envoy Steve Witkoff met Putin in Moscow on Wednesday.

The Kremlin called the meeting with Witkoff constructive and said two sides had exchange signals.

Putin also said he would be not opposed to meeting Zelenskyy. However, he added that “certain conditions should be created” before such an event and that current situation was far from ideal.

Ushakov said the idea of the three leaders potentially meeting came up during Witkoff’s meeting with Putin.

Ushakov said envoy Witkoff had raised the possibility but that the Russian side had left this proposal “completely without comment”.

Zelenskyy wrote on X, “Ukraine is not afraid of meetings and expects the same brave approach from the Russian side”. He said the talks ought to be in “two bilateral and one trilateral” format, and reiterated that Europe must play a role in ending the conflict.

Zelenskyy is said to have reached out to several European leaders including German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and French President Emmanuel Macron.

Why Trump-Putin talks may not end war

This is because Putin has given no indication that the war will end anytime soon

In fact Russia has massively increased its drone attacks over the past few months in an attempt to psychologically break Ukraine’s citizens and defenders.

Multiple rounds of talks between both sides from May to July have failed to produce any result.

Moscow in June gave Kyiv a list of demands to end the war.

This included Ukraine recognising Russian sovereignty over Crimea , Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson, demilitarization, new elections being held and no foreign military being present.

Experts say Russia in effect wants Ukraine to wave the white flag.

“The Russian side can frame this in a dozen different ways, creating the impression that Moscow is open to concessions and serious negotiation,” Russian political analyst Tatiana Stanovaya told BBC. “But the core position remains unchanged: Russia wants Kyiv to surrender.”

Others say Russia may be simply buying time for its trading partners India and China. Trump has already imposed 50 per cent sanctions on India for its relationship with Russia . He has also threatened to levy tariffs on China for the same. This as Beijing and Washington are currently negotiating a trade deal.

“One of them could be China,” Trump said earlier this week. “It may happen. I don’t know. I can’t tell you yet.”

“Putin couldn’t allow himself to be seen caving, but Trump couldn’t impose sanctions unless he knew they would work. Neither wants to project weakness. Thus, paralysis,” Sam Greene, director of Democratic Resilience at the Center for European Policy Analysis, was quoted as saying in Moscow Times.

“These proposed talks — if, of course, they happen — are a way out. Enough progress for Trump to claim his threats worked, but not enough for Putin to look like he’s caving. But it’s a better move for Russia than for anyone else,” Greene added.

Mykola Bielieskov of the National Institute for Strategic Studies in Kyiv said offering Putin a summit with Trump amounted to giving him a reward without getting anything in return. This, he said, gave Russia “the impression of getting out of isolation and talking on an equal footing”.

He said the Kremlin “will continue to drag out time, using the very fact of the meetings as proof of openness to negotiations without any concessions”.

Still others say that Moscow is simply trying to shift the blame.

Alexander Baunov, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, wrote on Telegram, “The problem is that even a rejection of the [Russian peace] proposal by Kyiv or Western governments is, in a way, also a win for the Kremlin since it shifts at least some of the blame for future war casualties away from Moscow and onto those who rejected the deal”.

“That gives the aggressor a paradoxical advantage: if it offers to de-escalate without having suffered a military defeat, it can start to look like a peace-seeker”, Baunov argued.

‘Masterful game’

Pro-Kremlin war blogger Yuri Podolyaka, posting after the Putin-Witkoff talks, said the Russian leader had played a “masterful diplomatic game”.

“It seems that Vladimir Putin has managed to spin Trump in a ‘carousel of negotiations’,” he posted on his blog, which has more than three million subscribers.

On the streets of Kyiv, Ukrainians were wary of what might come out of a Putin-Trump meeting.

“I don’t expect any positives,” Mykhailo Kryshtal, a 55-year-old actor, said.

“Why should he (Putin) end this war? He has at his fingertips a lot of people willing to die for him, or for some ephemeral ideas produced in Russia. These are all some kind of games.”

However, according to a new Gallup poll, 7 in 10 Ukrainians favour some sort of peace deal with Russia. This is a major change over 2022 when almost the same numbers wanted to keep fighting until Ukraine was completely free.

The war that has killed tens of thousands of troops on both sides and more than 12,000 Ukrainian civilians, according to UN estimates

With inputs from agencies