The Third Eye: Trump's initiative for ending Russia-Ukraine 'war' makes some progress

New Delhi, Aug 31 (IANS) The high-stakes summit between US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin, at the largest US military facility in Alaska on August 15, can be said to have ended on a positive note, even as no immediate step towards a ceasefire was announced.

They held a joint press conference to make the point that the meeting was productive but did not take questions for obvious reasons- Putin described the meeting as ‘a starting point’ for getting to a solution of the Russia-Ukraine ‘conflict’.

The Russian President acknowledged Trump’s sincerity of purpose by emphasising that the latter’s move would, in any case, help to sustain a ‘business-like and pragmatic’ relationship between Russia and US.

President Trump remarked with his characteristic candour that ‘both sides made great progress’, added that ‘a number of points had been agreed upon’ and commented lightheartedly that ‘there is no deal unless there is a deal’. One gets the impression that the meeting at Alaska was marked by a personal bonhomie between Trump and Putin, reflected best in the Russian President’s remark that ‘he agreed with Trump that there would have been no Russia-Ukraine war if the latter had been the US President’.

The US President informed the press after the summit that he would soon be meeting the Ukrainian President and his NATO allies to carry forward the agenda set at Alaska. The two leaders envisaged another meeting between them, Putin saying ‘maybe in Moscow’ and Trump replying with good humour that ‘he might get a little heat on that one’. Trump and Putin shared the view that the Biden Administration unfairly went after Russia in its belief that Putin had taken an interest in the US Presidential election of 2020 in favour of Trump.

Significantly, President Putin agreed that Ukraine should have security guarantees and added that these could be worked out. Ukraine's President attaches great importance to such guarantees. Putin hoped that the European allies of Ukraine would not ‘throw a wrench in the works’. This may be seen in the backdrop of President Zelensky pressing for the grant of NATO membership to Ukraine, to which President Putin was firmly opposed. Putin, at the same time, felt confident that President Trump understood Russia’s ‘national interests’. Trump announced that the Alaska summit had reached an understanding on ‘many, many’ points and added that ‘on a couple of big ones we have not quite got there, but we have made some headway’. The summit apparently went into many details and made a strategic evaluation of the expectations on both sides.

Trump stated that his advice to Zelensky would be ‘to make a deal’ hinting that Ukraine would have to make some concessions. His remark that European nations must also get involved a little bit’ to push the peace agenda is in line with this thinking. Expressing confidence in the outcome of the Alaska summit, he offered to join a future Putin-Zelensky meeting if the two sides so desired.

Trump is clearly empathetic towards Putin, and he may not mind pressurising President Zelensky a little to get the latter to come to terms with a ceasefire as well as the peace talks. It may be recalled that the first meeting of President Zelensky with President Trump and US Vice President JD Vance at the White House on Feb. 28, 2025 was marked by a discordant exchange of views between the US leaders and the visiting dignitary, in which Zelensky was apparently being coerced into accepting ceasefire and a defiant Ukrainian President was seen sticking to the demand for ‘security guarantees’ for his country.

The much anticipated meeting of Trump and the Ukrainian President, joined in by the top European leaders, took place at White House on August 18-among those present were the British Prime Minister, President of France, Italy’s PM, German Chancellor and NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte.

Trump struck a friendly chord by saying that the US would be willing to support European efforts to ‘police’ any peace deal on Ukraine. He ruled out Ukraine joining NATO but added that US ‘would help European countries to give protection to Ukraine. This resulted in Zelensky expressing his gratitude to President Trump for ‘backing security guarantees for Ukraine’. Indicating a further advance, Trump claimed that Putin would be ‘open to accepting security guarantees’ and Trump’s Special Envoy, Steve Witcoff, clarified that Moscow may not mind ‘a NATO-style protection for Ukraine’. NATO Secretary General struck an optimistic note, saying that ‘if we play this, we could end the fight in Ukraine’.

In the White House meeting, French President Emmanuel Macron took the lead in asserting that security guarantees for Ukraine were in fact meant to safeguard the ‘security of the European countries as a whole’. NATO members of Europe had misgivings about Putin’s future plans, and they were also not sure that Trump understood their concerns fully. A major conditionality of Ukraine on ‘security guarantees’ had been addressed but there were still ‘territorial’ issues and the matter of exchange of civilians in custody, to be resolved and the format of a peace pact to be defined. The course of developments so far do create an impression that both Russia and Ukraine seem to be keen on getting out of this debilitating ‘war’. However, the pressure was more on Ukraine after President Trump reversed the Biden Administration’s commitment to US-NATO axis of support to Ukraine against Russia.

French President Macron rightly observed that the most significant outcome of the talks at the White House was the ‘willingness of the US to work on the content of security guarantees for Ukraine’. What would please President Zelensky is the stand taken by Macron that the talk between Zelensky and President Putin should happen in a bilateral format first before a trilateral meeting took place with President Donald Trump.

Zelensky wants to meet Putin on an even footing and feels confident about handling the Russian President just as he was able to hold his ground in his first Oval Office meeting with Donald Trump on February 28, 2025. Putin was not warming up to the idea of a bilateral meeting between him and Zelensky. Significantly both French President and German Chancellor insisted that there should be a ‘truce’ or ‘ceasefire’ before talks began between Russia and Ukraine since, according to Macron, ‘we cannot hold discussions under bombs’- German Chancellor Frederik Merz also chipping in with his observation that ‘a real negotiation can only take place between the two warring countries when weapons fall silent’.

While European participants in the August 18 White House meeting seemed to echo the approach of the Ukrainian President. Trump on the other hand made an interesting remark that ‘he did not do any ceasefires’ in other conflicts he claimed to have resolved and seemed to be more in consonance with Russian President Putin whose top aid Kirill Dmitriev described the White House meeting as an ‘important day of diplomacy’ and wanted focus to be kept ‘on lasting peace not on a temporary ceasefire’.

Trump’s personal initiative towards pushing the three-and -a-half year old Ukraine-Russia conflict closer to a peaceful course can be appreciated- he had even called President Putin in the midst of the Aug 18 meeting at the White House to get the latter to agree with the idea of ‘security guarantees’ for Ukraine.

That a serious, worthwhile attempt is being made at the level of US President to work for a peaceful outcome of the world’s biggest military confrontation of the present -that was widely seen as having the potential for sparking off WW3 in the Biden era- has to be acknowledged. While a ‘ceasefire’ may not materialise unless there was a clear ‘peace package’ in sight, some sort of ‘self restraint’ on both sides can certainly be demonstrated. Though President Putin seems to be resolute about not letting go of the Russian hold on Donbas, a package of strategic steps offering some territorial readjustment could be worked on. These would include-promise of reconstruction of Ukraine, exchange of civilians taken away as prisoners on both sides, a readjustment in Crimea, stationing of Peace Keeping Force in the border region between Russia and Ukraine and a more benign role for EU to the exclusion of NATO.

Maintaining a democratic regime in Ukraine through the principle of ‘one man one vote’ should, to an extent, remove misgivings in Putin’s camp that the Russian-speaking population might be mistreated by the Zelensky regime.

A certain degree of federal autonomy for various regions of Ukraine might be of help in all of this. The call for withdrawal of Russian troops to their side of the border may not be accepted by Putin, as he was looking to retain an effective presence in the occupied territories of Ukraine. However, with the adoption of measures suggested above, President Trump may be able to soften the Russian President’s attitude of adamance on this matter.

Meanwhile, some ‘tit for tat’ kind of attacks by Ukraine and Russia have occurred-these are more of a manifestation of the desire on both sides not to give any impression of ‘weakness’ when an attempt was being made by the US President to prepare the groundwork for a peaceful resolution of the conflict. Russia made a drone attack on Kyiv on August 28, causing a few casualties was clearly a message to the Ukrainian President not to overestimate his position.

Donald Trump may be inclined to be relatively tough with Zelensky, but Putin also would have to prove that he was interested in peace. The major progress made so far is the result of a clear message from President Trump that the US did not support the idea of Ukraine joining NATO and a perceptible toning down of the anti-Russian rhetoric by European countries. The latter remain distrustful of the Russian President, who was for good reasons equally suspicious of NATO powers. It is not going to be easy to devise the format of a mutually acceptable peace proposal for Russia and Ukraine.

All eyes will be on a possible bilateral or trilateral meeting between the Presidents of the ‘warring’ nations, with US President facilitating it. Trump is also driven by his personal agenda of securing recognition as ‘the peace-maker of the world’.

India, on its part, has tried to ensure that the tariff issue linked with the purchase of Russian oil by India did not adversely affect the prospect of a peaceful resolution of the Russia-Ukraine conflict. India is rightly projecting the Indo-Russian relationship as a mark of exercise of national sovereignty by a non-aligned India that wanted bilateral friendships with all . The real challenge for the protagonists of peace lies in creating a level playing field between Ukraine and Russia to ensure that no side would claim ‘total victory’.

(The writer is a former Director Intelligence Bureau)

--IANS

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