The Alaska Summit between Trump and Putin to decide the fate of Ukraine: Without Ukraine

[Sukla Sen]

[This development once again gives a lie, for the nth time, to the grotesque claim that Zelenskyy is just an American puppet.

Trump, despite his highly personalised approach and considerable degree of unpredictability, is apparently bent upon working out a working relation with Putin, the Kleptocrat, and ceding him a limited sphere of exclusive influence in order to obtain a relatively freehand in respect of the rest of the globe.

His ways are largely similar to that of a street bully who's ready or even keen to cut deals with one or two other (smaller and yet dangerous) bullies to stabilise his reign over a much larger territory.

In that schema, Ukraine is just an insignificant pawn to be sacrificed without batting an eyelid.

That's precisely why Ukraine is uninvited to a summit meant to decide the fate of Ukraine.

Unfortunately, despite some valiant noise by Macron and a few others, Europe, as a whole, has turned out to be an extremely weak-kneed entity.

That makes Trump look even more intimidating.]

<https://mailchi.mp/kyivindependent.com/how-did-russia-grow-ballistic-missile-production-17590030>

A message from our editor-in-chief ahead of the Alaska summit

<<There are two likely scenarios, and neither of them seems promising for Ukraine. One is a meeting where Trump and Putin demonstrate friendliness and signal a restart of the relationship, but don’t immediately reach any agreements. The second option is one where they announce they’ve come to an agreement on how to end the war. That one would mean that Trump went along with Putin’s egregious demands and pledged to effectively force Ukraine to go for it.

Can Trump force Ukraine to do it, and de facto surrender? Not really. Ukraine won’t go for a peace deal that cedes territory to Russia, and the fighting will continue. Russia will win from it: Framing Ukraine as the uncooperative side weakens the Ukraine-U.S. alliance. More importantly for Russia, the meeting has the potential to undermine the transatlantic relationship.>>

Peace Is Doable