This Friday, Donald Trump will host Vladimir Putin for a summit in Alaska, the first time an American president has met the Russian leader since the 2022 invasion of Ukraine—and the first time Putin has been invited to the United States since the George W. Bush administration.
Meeting on territory that Russia once sold to the United States, Trump and Putin will reportedly discuss Russian territorial acquisitions in Ukraine. According to The Wall Street Journal and other outlets, a framework deal could include a Ukrainian withdrawal from the remainder of the Donetsk oblast, Russian withdrawal from smaller sections of Kharkiv, Sumy, Dnipropetrovsk, and Mykolaiv oblasts, and a freezing of the frontline elsewhere. These terms represent a softening of Russia’s June memorandum, which, as a condition for a ceasefire, demanded Ukrainian withdrawal from all four of the oblasts that the Kremlin claims to have annexed.
Leadership in Ukraine and across Europe remains steadfastly opposed to any territorial concessions. Volodymyr Zelensky, in a recorded video on Saturday, announced that “Ukrainians will not gift their land to the occupier.” A joint statement from an assortment of European leaders—including French, British, and Polish—expressed that “they remain committed to the principle that international borders must not be changed by force.”
“Trump remains cagey about his own expectations.”
The United States’s agreement to hold the summit signals a potential openness to Putin’s proposal. Although Trump remains cagey about his own expectations, he has made it clear that territorial exchange is not a taboo, declaring that “there’ll be some swapping of territories to the betterment of both,” and expressing frustration with Zelensky’s refusal to consider territorial concessions.
Fetishization of territory has long represented a roadblock to any serious progress toward a Ukrainian settlement. Western leaders continued to insist on the inviolability of Ukrainian territorial sovereignty—and the objective of reclaiming its 1991 borders—long after the failed counteroffensive had demonstrated that reclaiming substantial territory was highly unlikely. And Ukrainian military policy of holding onto territory at all costs, rather than withdrawing to more defensible positions, has resulted in multiple instances of partial encirclement and heavy losses.
The current European and Ukrainian position of demanding an immediate ceasefire along current lines is hardly more realistic. Russia continues to advance and has made significant breakthroughs in the last week. Western refusal to recognize any territorial revisionism largely rests on appeals to history: The norm against forceful acquisition of territory is considered a pillar of the postwar order, ensuring a long period of relative peace in Europe. References to the Munich agreement are a constant refrain, reflecting fears that “rewarding” aggression will only increase Russia’s imperial appetite.
Yet the fact that Russia will acquire territory because of this war has long been clear. The Donbas has been central to Russian strategy since 2014; Russia already occupies all of Luhansk and is unlikely to stop until it gains the remaining 30 percent of Donetsk. There is also little chance that Putin would cede significant territory in Zaporizhiya and Kherson—the two other oblasts that Russia has constitutionally incorporated, although he may be ready to give up claims to the parts of these regions that Russia does not yet control (including the two administrative capitals).
In short, Russia will likely gain control of much of Donetsk anyway—if not at the negotiating table, then on the battlefield. Principled refusals to recognize this fact make it no less real. If Ukrainian withdrawal from the rest of Donetsk will secure a ceasefire and the start of serious peace talks, then Trump should endorse the deal and Zelensky should accept it at a subsequent summit. At this point, the norm of territorial inviolability is not likely to rise or fall over marginal Russian gains in the Donbas. Indeed, any territorial swap should not be seen as a reward for Putin, but rather a harsh reality, one that has also cost Russia dearly. Indeed, the invasion of Ukraine serves more as a warning against repeating such adventures than an appealing example to imitate.
The West should not only accept the realities of the current military balance in Ukraine. It should go further and seek to stabilize the future line of contact through recognition of Russian territorial control. There is ample evidence that unsettled borders and disputed territory lead to violence. Meanwhile, many modern borders are peaceful, including those originally created by force. The option least likely to produce further flareups would therefore be de jure recognition (of Donbas, or just of Crimea), or recognition of Russian control for a defined time period (say, 30 years), after which the question could be revisited through referenda. If Ukrainian political imperatives make this impossible, then de facto recognition is a reasonable fallback option.
In exchange for recognizing the line of control (i.e., stable borders in some form), the West can push for other concessions, such as getting Putin to mostly discard his objective of “demilitarization” in Ukraine. Aside from certain limitations on long-range precision weapon systems, Ukraine should be free to guarantee its own security within its new borders through a strong defensive deterrent.
Getting past the taboo of territorial concessions and securing a ceasefire would also set the stage for discussion of the difficult questions that will have the greatest impact on postwar stability and Ukraine’s viability as a state. These include questions of neutrality, Ukraine’s relationship with the EU, economic support for the country’s reconstruction (which could come, in part, from frozen Russian funds), and the return of peacetime democratic processes in Ukraine (beginning with a presidential election and including some status for Russian language and the canonical Orthodox church). There are also broader questions to consider, such as strategic stability between the United States and Russia and the future of European security.
Four years ago, top American and Chinese officials met in Alaska to reset their relationship. It ended disastrously, with National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan and Chinese official Yang Jiechi yelling at each other about norms and values. If Trump and Putin can prioritize pragmatism over principles, then the upcoming Alaska summit has the potential to produce more promising outcomes. And while no one should expect this summit to end with a fully-fledged Russia-Ukraine peace deal, it could be an important first step towards resolving the conflict, freezing it in place, addressing territorial issues, and providing space to address the bigger strategic questions.