Donald Trump, along with the rest of the Western political world, is full of optimism about peace in Ukraine. Following his intimate meeting with Vladimir Putin in Alaska, and his almost-cordial talks with Zelensky at the White House, the irrepressible American President is treating peace as all but guaranteed: “Everyone is very happy about the possibility of PEACE for Russia/Ukraine,” he wrote on Truth Social. He has even dangled the possibility of a three-way summit between himself, Putin, and Zelensky before the end of August.
Ukraine’s political leaders and population remain, understandably, far more cautious. Zelensky cannot easily accept a settlement that might cement the loss of vast swathes of his country in exchange for little more than a temporary reprieve from Russian attack. Europe’s leaders are likewise treading carefully. But the greatest hold-out remains Putin. If anyone thought that the spectacle of Putin’s welcome in Alaska, which brought the leader out from several years in the political cold, would persuade the Russian President to agree to peace, they may be in for disappointment. Putin appears set on pursuing the war against Ukraine and playing diplomatic hardball.
Compared to the excitable commentary that has resounded across the West, the Kremlin’s public response to the weekend’s events has been remarkably muted. Scoring an invitation to Alaska was certainly a coup, and pictures of American soldiers rolling out the red carpet for Putin were received with delight on pro-Kremlin social media channels. However, a bland statement released by the Kremlin on 19 August mentioned only that Russia was “continuing to make progress on a peaceful resolution to the Ukraine crisis”. While Trump seems to think one grand photo-op with the leaders of Kyiv and Moscow will conjure peace, Putin is committing, as ever, to almost nothing at all.
Meanwhile, Putin’s mouthpieces are working hard to dampen expectations at home of a quick and easy deal. Where the White House speaks of a trilateral summit, Yuri Ushakov, one of Putin’s most senior foreign policy advisers, mentioned only the possibility of “raising the level of representatives of the parties”. This would mean that more rounds of lower-level talks, akin to earlier gatherings in Istanbul or Saudi Arabia that saw few concrete changes, would have to precede any grand summit.
Sergey Lavrov, Putin’s veteran foreign minister, who always chooses his words carefully, used a television appearance yesterday to remind viewers that: “the Ukrainian Constitution retains the obligation of the state to fully ensure the rights of Russians.” An official Kremlin statement said much the same: “without respect for the security of Russia and the full rights of Russians in Ukraine, there can be no talk of any long-term agreements.” These comments, which are being repeated across dozens of television channels and hundreds of social media feeds, echo the justifications Putin offered when he launched the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. By repeating them now, Lavrov and his diplomatic peers are making clear that the Kremlin is not on the verge of compromise. Russia will not be hurried by Trump, Zelensky, or anyone else.
“Putin appears set on pursuing the war against Ukraine and playing diplomatic hardball.”
These noises are being echoed in the massive, state-controlled Russian media landscape, where unlike on Trump’s feeds, the emphasis is on complexity. On Tuesday, Izvestiya, Russia’s newspaper of record, ran a lengthy explainer that twisted Trump’s statement that the remaining issues aren’t “overly complex” to suggest that the issues are “complex” — a way of shifting attention away from the excitement in Washington and back towards the grinding reality of diplomacy.
These complex issues — questions of language, minority rights, Nato, and EU membership — will not, Russians are told, be resolved in multilateral forums with Zelensky and European leaders. The Russians remember all too well the failed Minsk agreements, which aimed to halt fighting in the east of Ukraine in 2014-15. Laboriously negotiated by Ukraine, Russia, France, and Germany over months, two separate agreements failed to stop the fighting. The Minsk process became — in Moscow’s eyes — a cause of the current invasion: the West, goes the Russian narrative, was only ever interested in helping Ukraine continue to attack “Russians” on its own territory.
The Russian media has a lowly opinion of Europe’s leaders, who are seen to be obsessing over irrelevant details and making impossible demands. Aleksandr Kots, one of Russia’s leading war correspondents, described Monday’s Washington DC meeting bluntly: “The Europeans have proven their absolute uselessness.” Zelensky fares no better. He remains, in Russian state media, the illegitimate head of a “Kiev regime” who has put off elections in Ukraine and only holds power due to what is portrayed as the illegal Maidan “coup”. Dmitry Medvedev, ever one for a fiery turn of phrase, dismisses him on social media as a “buffoon”; others declare that he is trapped in a diplomatic “dead end”. These comments rocket between social and traditional media and vice versa, filling Russians’ minds with the same idea.
The only dealmaker Russian commentators are interested in is Trump. He has been cast as a decisive leader who can talk straight with Putin and put Europe in its place. State outlets revelled in reports that the American President had “harshly rebuffed” European leaders’ ceasefire proposals during their meetings in Washington. For Russia’s commentators, Monday’s meeting was a distraction from the real action: negotiations between Trump and Putin.
Yet any admiration for Trump is tempered by the widespread belief that he will easily be outwitted by Putin. Pro-Kremlin journalist Aleksandr Yunashev warned on Telegram that a Putin-Zelensky summit “on any terms does not correspond to our interests, but we do not plan to close this window of opportunity”. Trump, he reminded readers, still wants to sell weapons to Ukraine and has a record of flip-flops and about-turns. Yunashev thus suggests that Moscow is wary of Trump, but will string him along — because, unlike Europe’s divided, ineffectual, and indecisive leaders, Trump can supposedly deliver what Putin wants.
Scroll through Russian Telegram channels and the message is clear: Putin is masterminding the entire negotiation process. He is outfoxing Trump, running circles around the hapless Europeans, and reducing Zelensky to an illegitimate spectator. Little surprise that some Russian social media users believe that Putin is “laughing at the plans of all the people who might try to make a fool of him”.
The propagandists insist that Russia is making great gains in its offensive in Eastern Ukraine. Breakthroughs, whether real or exaggerated, are trumpeted as proof that Moscow has the upper hand, even as the Russian economy stutters and army recruitment barely keeps pace with casualties. The more land Putin holds when a summit with Zelensky eventually happens, the more he can claim in any territorial deal. In fact, he’s used this tactic before, back in 2015, when Russian forces pushed to seize the Ukrainian settlement of Debaltseve even as the Minsk II ceasefire was being finalised — and briefly continued that push even after the deal was struck. In recent weeks, Russian officials have repeatedly reiterated their maximalist war goals, which would leave Ukraine not controlled by Moscow but in a quasi-dismembered state ripe for the economic and political taking. There is no sign of a sea change after the weekend’s public diplomacy.
The Kremlin, in short, is telling two stories to two different audiences. Putin tells Trump that the peace negotiations are serious, that the Kremlin is ready to make progress, and that Russia may even agree to Trump’s grand peacemaking summit with Zelensky. Meanwhile, Russian media is telling citizens to trust the President’s plan: if the Russian people endure further conflict, then the Kremlin will deliver them territory, protection, self-respect, and a seat at the global top table. Most of all, though, the Kremlin is promising that Zelensky will be brought to a summit with Putin not to negotiate but to submit to a humiliating peace deal.
