US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin will meet in Alaska on Friday to discuss ending the war in Ukraine. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has been notably excluded from the high-stakes summit.
The meeting came about because Putin requested it, according to White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt. "So the president is agreeing to this meeting at the request of President Putin," she said during her press briefing on Monday afternoon.
Putin's initiative drives talks
"The goal of this meeting for the president is to walk away with a better understanding of how we can end this war," Leavitt explained. The summit will take place in Anchorage, Alaska's largest city, though the exact time remains unknown.
The exclusion of Ukraine's leadership from direct negotiations has raised constitutional and practical concerns. The Ukrainian constitution prohibits territorial concessions without a referendum, creating potential legal barriers to any peace deal.
Shifting Ukrainian sentiment
Public opinion in Ukraine has shifted significantly, according to The i. Some 69% of Ukrainians now favour a negotiated end to the war, reversing from 73% who previously wanted to fight until victory.
European leaders have expressed alarm about negotiations proceeding without Ukrainian participation, according to reports from The Guardian and Independent. The exclusion represents a departure from the principle of "nothing about Ukraine without Ukraine" that has guided Western policy.
Strategic considerations
The Week reports that potential compromise frameworks could distinguish between de facto and de jure territorial arrangements. Such technical solutions might address constitutional constraints while enabling practical negotiations.
Trump's motivations for pursuing the summit may include Nobel Peace Prize aspirations and creating distractions from domestic issues, according to analysis reported by Metro. Putin enters the negotiations from a position of military advantage on the battlefield.
Sources used: "Metro", "The Guardian", "Independent", "The Week", "The i"
Note: This article has been edited with the help of Artificial Intelligence.
