KYIV, Ukraine — Russia’s battlefield breakthrough in Ukraine this week and the Kremlin’s relentless sabotage campaign across the rest of Europe ratcheted up the already high stakes for President Trump ahead of his summit Friday and worried already pessimistic Ukrainians.
Amid troubling reports that Russian forces have pierced Ukrainian lines in Donbas and a warning from Norway that Russian hackers temporarily seized control and sabotaged operations of a hydroelectric dam, the U.S. president will host Vladimir Putin, his Russian counterpart, for a face-to-face meeting at a military base in Anchorage, Alaska.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and his allies among European leaders expressed cautious optimism Thursday that Mr. Trump had heeded repeated warnings that the Russian leader could not be trusted. They collectively praised Mr. Trump for his support for an international force they are mustering to enforce the terms of any eventual peace agreement.
However, optimism is in short supply on the battered streets of Kyiv.
“I don’t expect anything. What negotiations can you have without Ukraine?” Oleksandra Pobol, a Kyiv resident who recently lost her home to a Russian missile attack, told a Globe and Mail reporter.
Oleksandra Kozlova, another war-weary Kyiv resident, echoed Ms. Pobol’s skepticism. The 39-year-old, who works at a digital agency in Kyiv, told The Associated Press on Wednesday that she believes Ukrainians “have already lost hope” that meaningful progress can be made toward ending the war.
Car salesman Anton Vyshniak told the wire service that Ukraine’s priority now should be saving the lives of its military service members, even at the expense of territorial concessions.
“At the moment, the most important thing is to preserve the lives of male and female military personnel. After all, there are not many human resources left,” he said. “Borders are borders, but human lives are priceless.”
Some Ukrainians were resigned to losing territory.
“I want them to agree to some kind of truce. We have been fighting for a long time,” a resident identified only as Volodymyr told the Kyiv Post. He said he was prepared to lose some long-occupied parts of Ukraine, such as Donetsky and Crimea, if it meant peace.
Artem Fysun, a soldier with the Peaky Blinders drone unit, predicted in an interview with the Kyiv Independent that the Trump-Putin talks would produce nothing.
“These negotiations will lead nowhere,” he said. “It’s unlikely that Putin, Trump and even Zelenskyy will be able to agree on stopping the war because I see that on the front line, Putin is not stopping.”
Despite the pessimism, Mr. Zelenskyy’s approval rating remains solid, stabilized at 67%, down from a high of 84% in the early days of the war, according to a recent Gallup poll.
“Zelenskyy remains popular and the military retains overwhelming public trust,” Gallup officials said. “Yet, confidence in several national institutions remains below 50%.”
As Mr. Putin pushes his advantage on the battlefield in Ukraine, the Kremlin is being blamed for an escalating series of sabotage and infrastructure attacks across Europe. The most recent reported incident involved the April takeover of the hydroelectric dam in Norway.
The director of the Norwegian Police Security Service, Beate Gangas, said the attacks are being carried out against Western nations to stoke fear and unrest.
A recent report from the Center for Strategic and International Studies documented more than 200 clandestine incidents linked to Russia from January 2022 to March 2025, tracking a campaign of disruption across Europe blamed on Russia that Western officials described as “reckless.”
Since Moscow invaded Ukraine, Western officials have accused Russia and its proxies of staging dozens of attacks and other incidents, including vandalism, arson and attempted assassination.
Intelligence officials tell The Washington Times that the campaign is becoming more violent.
During the Norway dam attack, hackers accessed a digital system that remotely controlled one of the dam’s valves and opened it to increase the water flow. The valve was open for about four hours but did not pose a danger to the surrounding area.
Seth G. Jones, a former senior official in the U.S. Defense Department and the author of the CSIS sabotage report, said the number of Russian hybrid operations in Europe tripled from 2023 to 2024 after quadrupling in 2022.
“Putin sees Western military support for Ukraine as escalation. And because there’s only so much he can do to escalate inside Ukraine, he’s now turning to asymmetric hybrid operations elsewhere in Europe,” said Ned Price, a former CIA analyst and a State Department spokesman in the Biden administration. “These are unattributable, asymmetric actions, but the pattern is increasingly clear.
“Many of these plots and attacks are being carried out at the behest of Russian intelligence services.”
The CSIS report notes that the primary targets of these Russian operations include transport infrastructure (27%), public institutions (27%), critical energy and communication systems (20%), and companies involved in Ukraine-related military logistics (21%).
“This isn’t new. The Kremlin never stopped using the tools of sabotage, disinformation, cyberwarfare and targeted killings,” Mr. Price told The Times.
• This article is based in part on wire service reports.
• Mike Glenn can be reached at mglenn@washingtontimes.com.
• Guillaume Ptak can be reached at gptak@washingtontimes.com.