On August 15, Trump and Putin will meet in the US state of Alaska to discuss a possible peace agreement on the Ukraine war. But Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyj will have to stay home.
It's a huge propaganda victory for Putin. He has got the meeting without concessions. And without Zelenskyj, says Carolina Vendil Pallin, research leader for the Russia group at the Swedish Defence Research Agency (FOI).
First and foremost, it is like an additional act in this negotiation theater and pressures both Ukraine and Europe.
But that the meeting could actually lead to a peace agreement is hard for her to see.
Getting an agreement without even getting a ceasefire seems unlikely, she says and continues:
If you are to get a ceasefire, it requires enormous preparations. It's 1,000 km of front that needs to be regulated and controlled.
Trump stated on Friday that "exchange of territories" will likely be part of a peace agreement and according to sources for Bloomberg, Putin demands that Ukraine hands over the Donbass region and the Crimean peninsula to Russia, as part of the agreement.
In a recorded speech on Saturday morning, Zelenskyj says that they will not give away any part of their country to the occupant. He also says that decisions made without Ukrainian representation are "stillborn".
