Tête-à-tête Trump-Putin : What Chances For Peace?

On Friday August 15, 2025, the United States President, Donald Trump and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin will meet in Alaska (United States), to discuss ways forward to end the war in Ukraine. The Alaska rendez-vous comes after three rounds of talks between Russia and Ukraine held at Trump's behest this summer failed to bring the two sides closer to peace. Friday’s meeting will be the first time two sitting U.S. and Russian Presidents are meeting since 2021, when then-President Joe Biden met the Russian leader in Geneva and the first time Putin and Trump are meeting since 2019. It is also the first time in a decade that Putin will be setting foot in the U.S soil.
Though the US President claimed that a deal “to stop the killing” is "very close", the success of a ceasefire deal hinges on his ability to convince Ukraine to agree to Putin’s list of demands, which involves Kyiv giving up large parts of its territory. “We’re going to get some back, and we’re going to get some switched,” the President said at the White House. “There’ll be some swapping of territories to the betterment of both,” he reiterated. Trump’s reaction comes to buttress his administration’s repeated stand that Ukraine must give up land in exchange for peace. In March this year, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said it would be “very difficult for Ukraine in any reasonable time period to force the Russians back all the way to where they were in 2014,” and called for Kyiv to make “concessions” to achieve peace.
While both Russia and Ukraine say they want the war to end, both appear to want things that the other harshly opposes. Ukraine has been adamant that it won't accept Russian control of regions it seized, most notably Crimea. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has dismissed the idea outright. “There's nothing to talk about here. This is against our constitution,” he said. So far, Putin has not budged from his territorial demands, Ukraine's neutrality and the future size of its army are still on the demand list of Russia. Ukraine with the backing of the European Union is not ready to compromise. French President Emmanuel Macron, Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen, Estonian Prime Minister Kristen Michal, and U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer have all voiced their support for Ukrainian sovereignty and an end of the war.
Reasons why, the Trump administration has been attempting to sway European leaders on a ceasefire deal that would hand over swathes of Ukrainian territory to Russia. The deal would allow Russia to keep control o...