• Foreign & Public Diplomacy
• Russia
• Ukraine
• Emma Ashford

August 14, 2025, 12:01 AM View Comments ()

When the United States purchased the territory of Alaska from the Russian Empire in 1867, newspaper editorials mockingly referred to it as “Seward’s Folly” and “Walrussia.” But when U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin meet in Alaska on Aug. 15, for their first summit since 2016, the symbolism will be clear: a U.S. territory—and later a state—purchased and transferred peaceably in negotiations, now hosting talks focused on territorial boundaries in Ukraine.

Editorials today might as well refer to the summit as “Trump’s folly.” Indeed, many commentators have expressed open distaste for the idea of talking to Russia at all. And it’s certainly true that the summit could be pointless—or even actively detrimental to resolving Russia-Ukraine war. But it doesn’t have to be. There are scenarios in which this summit could yield small results that enable further talks over time.

U.S. President Ronald Reagan, in a 1986 radio address to the people of the Soviet Union, talked about the arduous process of finding common ground. “The United States,” he said, “stands ready to support all serious efforts to find peaceful solutions to regional conflicts. And we’re ready to work with the Soviet Union and any other country to that end. There are many complex issues to be discussed between the United States and the Soviet Union. Resolving them will not be easy, but the things most worth doing seldom are.”

In that spirit, observers should not simply ridicule or dismiss the Alaska talks but should instead look at the prospects they offer for some resolution to the war. Consider the following scenarios.

The Nothing Burger

Summits between the United States and Russia have rarely produced good results. There was U.S. President Joe Biden’s Geneva summit with Putin in 2021, followed a little over seven months later by the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. There was Trump’s 2018 meeting with Putin in Helsinki, a conversation that fed Russiagate scandal rumors and did little for the U.S.-Russia relationship. Then there was U.S. President Barack Obama’s so-called “burger summit” with then-Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, with the pair photographed eating burgers in Arlington, Virginia. You could call that meeting the original nothing burger.

One possible outcome for this summit, therefore, is a continuation of this trend: a conversation between Trump and Putin that does little to resolve the actual issues at stake. If discussions end up being a failure, many European states hope that Trump will finally impose more draconian financial measures on Russia. Indeed, some are already suggesting that the most likely outcome is that Trump will be able to tell that Putin isn’t serious. But it’s equally likely that an announcement or failure at the summit could further isolate Ukraine from the United States by suggesting that Ukraine’s maximalist demands are to blame for blocking peace.

Either way, a summit that produces no deal is going to be worse for Ukraine than it is for Russia. Ukraine’s military position is increasingly precarious, and it is suffering from a lack of manpower and equipment. In any war of attrition, the smaller state—like Ukraine—is at a disadvantage over time, even if it’s backed by larger states. Ukraine’s leaders may not be keen to make concessions, but their negotiating position continues to weaken.

The Unicorns

A less realistic scenario comes from some of Trump’s most ardent supporters, who suggest that a meeting between the great man and Putin will be enough to create a full-fledged peace deal—or simply the beginning of a substantive detente between the United States and Russia. In some ways, the people most guilty of this are Trump himself and his chief negotiator, Steve Witkoff, who often look past the pesky details of diplomacy to claim big wins.

But it beggars belief to suggest that Trump and Putin—neither of whom are detail-oriented men—can, in a few hours, hash out the details of a practical cease-fire with monitoring, Ukraine’s future in Europe, thorny territorial questions, and the resolution of complex sanctions regimes. This outcome is a fantasy.

Just as unrealistic on the other side, however, are those who continue to push a “cease-fire first” approach to negotiations. This has been the plan of many top European leaders, including Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky himself and those from the United Kingdom, France, and Germany, who continue to insist that any negotiations should only happen after an initial cease-fire is put in place. This camp continues to push Trump to take a hard-line stance going into the summit in order to achieve an unconditional cease-fire.

But that scenario is also the result of unrealistic and maximalist thinking. Why would Russia, currently winning on the battlefield and with a damaged but still largely resilient economy, agree to stop fighting and making gains in exchange for nothing? In short, this outcome is as much a fantasy as the notion that everything can be resolved in a few short hours.

A First Step

Perhaps the best-case scenario is, ironically, the least ambitious. Trump said the summit is a “feel-out meeting”—a way for him to assess whether Putin is serious about peace. And though Russia’s current proposal is ridiculous in some ways—Ukrainian territorial concessions just in exchange for an end to the fighting—it’s also far less than it has previously asked for.

Notably, this latest proposal does not include preconditions related to Ukraine’s government, its sovereignty, or its security. If this is indeed an opening bid from Russia, it is one that could potentially be negotiated down to a reasonable place: some territorial swaps that leave the front line for both sides more defensible and more secure in exchange for a cessation in hostilities to clear the way for further negotiations. Zelensky has rightly noted that Ukraine’s constitution prohibits the government from ceding territory unless a nationwide referendum is held, but there is a difference between de jure recognition and the practical, de facto acknowledgement by Ukraine’s government of land that has been occupied and is unlikely to be reclaimed in the near term.

There are many ways in which the territorial knot could be sliced. The United States and Ukraine could recognize these concessions in distinct ways. Some territories, such as Crimea, could be legally recognized as Russian and others just tentatively or de facto. Territorial recognition could include a time frame like 20 or 30 years. Land does not have to be exchanged in a like-for-like manner, either. Some small areas—such as the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, currently under Russian control—might be worth substantially more to Ukraine in practical terms than farmland in the Donbas.

Any deal that exchanges territory for peace would be a significant—and incredibly difficult—step for all sides. It would also only be the start of a process that would need to consider issues of Ukraine’s future sovereignty and alignment (such as whether it can integrate with the European Union), the mechanics of its future defense (what armaments either side will be permitted in a peace deal and how the agreement will be monitored and enforced), and if Russia intends to make any demands regarding Ukraine’s domestic politics (like protections for the Russian language). Each of these issues will need to be negotiated, likely over a period of several years.

Still, there’s a reason why the third scenario is clearly the best of the available options: It’s the only one that produces a practical outcome better than the status quo. Ignoring the Alaska summit—or continuing to insist on maximalist demands, as European leaders have been doing—is unhelpful. At present, it is unclear if Zelensky will attend the summit. The White House reported that he has not been invited and that staff are focused on the bilateral meeting instead. His presence is probably necessary for any of the better outcomes here; policymakers in Europe should encourage him to attend and push the White House to invite him.

At the end of the day, there are ways in which the summit could act as a bridge to a peace process. Dismissing the meeting as pointless—or a Trumpian reality TV stunt—means closing off this option, a fatalistic assumption that better outcomes are simply unachievable. Even if the summit is successful, it will be followed by a difficult and arduous process. It will not be easy to move toward a concrete deal on territory, a cease-fire, or any of the other complex issues at stake. But as Reagan might have put it, the things most worth doing are seldom easy.