The agreement with Mr. Putin to hold this meeting will help Mr. Trump reduce his domestic and foreign discomfort after making a final statement on a ceasefire in Ukraine. It can be seen that the Russian side's intention is both to resolutely reject Mr. Trump's letter, but also to seek to take advantage of and encourage Mr. Trump to continue investing his intelligence and time in building the role of the United States in ending the conflict in Ukraine. However, whether Mr. Putin and Mr. Trump will achieve any specific results or not is another matter.
It can be seen that Mr. Trump is much more determined with this meeting than Mr. Putin. This is actually for a reason. Mr. Trump has said he can end the Ukrainian conflict within 24 hours if he is re-elected as US President. After returning to power in the US, Mr. Trump has proactively taken strong and surprising diplomatic moves to carry out this drastic decision but has not been successful.
The simple reason is that Mr. Trump does not have many bright and useful card owners like Mr. Putin. The difficulty for Mr. Trump is that to convince Russia to accept a peaceful political solution to the conflict in Ukraine, it must meet Russia's prerequisites. But Ukraine and its US allies in Europe are determined to reject these preconditions. Among those preconditions are Russia's request for territory of Ukraine that Russia is currently managing and controlling, Russia's demand for Ukraine not to join NATO and the condition that the US and its allies must end military aid to Ukraine.
All of these are expected to be highlights on the agenda of the upcoming meeting between Trump and Putin in Alaska. If these preconditions are not accepted, the Russian side will certainly not accept a ceasefire. Without the US's solid assurance of meeting those prerequisites, there may not be a meeting between Mr. Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and it will be difficult to have a tripartite meeting between Mr. Putin, Mr. Trump and Mr. Zelensky. Not to mention that Mr. Zelensky has publicly denied Ukraine's acceptance of the transfer of territory to Russia.
However, with just the upcoming meeting in Alaska, Mr. Trump and Mr. Putin have achieved each side's own initial goals. So far, the two leaders have met in Helsinki (France) in 2018 and 2019 (on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Japan). Since Mr Trump cannot negotiate on behalf of Ukraine, the EU and NATO, any agreement reached between Mr Trump and Mr Putin cannot be a solution to the conflict in Ukraine. But the world still has high expectations for the upcoming third meeting between Mr. Trump and Mr. Putin, expecting a breakthrough in the direction of a peaceful political solution for the conflict in Ukraine.
