Ukrainian President Zelensky (Ansa photo).
On August 15th. The date of the meeting between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin to discuss how to end the war in Ukraine has been set. Will be in Alaska, The territory purchased by the USA more than a century and a half ago from Russia. Already in the meeting in Moscow with the United States correspondent Steve Witkoff, Putin had proposed the complete ceased the fire in Ukraine in exchange for the sale of the Ukrainian Eastern regions – largely occupied by the Russian forces – and of Crimea, occupied and illegally annexed to Russia in 2014.
By announcing the next summit with the Russian president, Trump said that a possible peace agreement could pass through the exchange of territories. At present, Russia occupies and controls most of the Donbas, or almost the whole region (Oblast) of Luhansk, about three quarters of the Donetsk region, of that of Zaporizhizia, almost all the Kherson Oblast and all the Crimea. Putin’s will is to obtain the recognition of the annexation to Russia of these regions, claiming the results of the referendum-Farsa of September 2022, recognized only by two countries, Russia and North Korea, with the citizens of the occupied areas forced to vote, subject to the intimidation of the Russian soldiers who went home to the house with the electoral polls.
Even if it is not clear exactly which Trump territories refers to when he speaks of exchange, It is now clear that the negotiation between Washington and Moscow presupposes an agreement on the Ukrainian territories. Putin is in no way willing to accept the ceasefire without his territorial requests being satisfied. Ukraine will be absent at the table in Alaska. The Ukrainian President Zelensky, who had been said and ready to personally meet the leader of the Kremlin, was excluded from this phase of negotiations and – despite the pragmatic awareness that at this point Kyiv will have to deal with the territories – made it known that Ukrainians will not give the Russians any reward for what they did by invading Ukraine. “The answer to the Ukrainian territorial question is already in the constitution of Ukraine … Ukrainians will not give their land to the occupant“, Zelensky underlined in a long statement published on Telegram.” Ukraine is ready to make concrete decisions that can lead to peace. Any decision against us, any decision that excludes Ukraine, is at the same time a decision against peace and will lead to nothing. They are dead decisions, they will never work. And we all need a real, alive peace that people respect “.
Any agreement was taken by Trump and Putin, in short, should then be accepted by Kyiv. After three and a half years of war, Ukrainians are extremely tried, exhausted, disillusioned: most citizens no longer believe in the possibility of a Ukrainian victory that can allow their country to preserve its territorial integrity. A recent survey by the American Gallup Institute notes that almost 70% of Ukrainians are in favor of putting an end to the most taken by the conflict through negotiations, showing a reversal of public opinion compared to 2022, when 73% of Ukrainians were favorable to continue fighting until they reach the victory. But this does not mean that, today, Ukrainians are willing to give any transfer to Moscow and to accept any condition. The Russian threat is scary, the Ukrainians do not trust Moscow and, any form of agreement is taken, they ask for certain guarantees, to remove the danger that, in a few years or even earlier, find themselves undergoing a new attack by Russia.
With the visit to Alaska Putin he returns to the United States for the first time after almost ten years. The last visit of the Kremlin leader in the USA, in fact, was in September 2015. THEThe last meeting of Putin with a US president was with Joe Biden in 2021 in Geneva, before the Vication of Ukraine. “The Kremlin expects that, after Alaska, the subsequent meeting between the Russian and American presidents Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump takes place in Russian territory,” said the director of the Russian leader Yuri Ushakov, as reported by the Interfax agency. As for the choice of Alaska as a place of the meeting, Ushakov said that “Russia and the United States are neighbors, neighboring. And it seems completely logical that our delegation simply crosses the Bering Strait and that such an important and expected summit of the leaders of the two countries is held in Alaska “.
(Ansa photo: Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin)
