Trudy Rubin: Putin has the upper hand in meeting with Trump on Ukraine

Trudy Rubin, The Philadelphia Inquirer on Aug 13, 2025

Published in Op Eds

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Once again, a willfully blind President Donald Trump is walking into a trap set by Russian leader Vladimir Putin — by agreeing to meet him for a summit in Alaska on Aug. 15.

No matter how many times Putin insults the president and ignores his calls for a total ceasefire in Ukraine, Trump returns for more humiliation. He refuses to recognize that Putin has no interest in peace.

After a few weeks of bluster about his “disappointment” with Putin, Trump has once again ignored a deadline he set (Aug. 8) for imposing secondary sanctions on Moscow.

Instead, he has agreed to reward the Russian leader with a summit before Putin even agrees to a temporary ceasefire. And so far, Trump is excluding President Volodymyr Zelenskyy from the meeting. Shades of 1938 indeed.

Never mind that Putin still insists Ukraine has no right to exist, recently declaring that “all of Ukraine is ours.” Never mind that this war criminal told Trump’s hopelessly naive emissary, Steve Witkoff, that he won’t accept less than full Ukrainian capitulation.

And never mind that Moscow pundits are joking that, just as Russia is “restoring” Ukraine to Russian control, it should retake Alaska, which a Russian tsar sold to America in 1867.

Once again, Trump appears ready — no, eager — to play into Putin’s hands.

Just holding the meeting will be a diplomatic victory for Putin, who wants to emerge from isolation by the West for his brutal invasion. The summit will halt what seemed to be mounting momentum in Europe, in the U.S. Senate, and even in the White House for penalizing Putin over his continuation of the war.

Putin will be trying to deflect any further U.S. implementation of secondary sanctions on Russian oil exports or banks, or seizure of frozen Russian assets. The White House has clumsily proposed sanctions on India for massive purchases of cheap Russian oil, but not yet imposed them on Russia’s biggest customer, China.

And the Russian leader looks likely to receive even more free gifts on Aug. 15.

By excluding European allies, Trump also furthers the Kremlin’s goal of splitting any united NATO position on Ukraine.

And Putin also gains more time to continue his brutal air assault on Ukraine. If past is prologue, the Russian leader will tantalize Trump with offers of fantasy business deals, while fooling him with alleged concessions that actually aid Moscow.

One such proposal is a partial ceasefire limited to the air war. This may sound good given Russia’s missile and drone assault on Ukrainian hospitals, apartment buildings, and other civilian sites across the country. But it is a poison pill for Ukraine.

Kyiv’s main strength lies in the air, as its drones slow down Russia’s creeping ground advances, achieved by sacrificing large amounts of troops. Ukrainian drones now also target critical military infrastructure inside Russia, and keep Russian ships out of the Black Sea along the Ukrainian coast.

Freeze the air war, and you give Moscow carte blanche to advance by land and sea. There is no way Kyiv could accept such a terrible proposal, even if it tantalized the ill-informed Trump.

If the president were serious about seeking peace, he would drop the idea of a premature summit. Even Secretary of State Marco Rubio (who understands Putin but has been too sycophantic to oppose Trump publicly) has said summits should be reserved as closers on an accord. In other words, not used to beg.

Trump would also stop treating the Europeans as enemies with his blunderbuss tariffs. He would join with Europe in coordinating secondary sanctions on the Kremlin. (And he would be working behind the scenes to discourage purchases of cheap Russian energy by India, which is nominally an ally, instead of publicly berating Delhi.)

Moreover, the White House would be coordinating closely with Europe — and Ukraine — in helping Kyiv massively bolster its own weapons production, which it could do cheaply and quickly, including drones and drone interceptors.

The Europeans, unlike the Trump administration, grasp the danger of Putin’s imperial dreams of territorial expansion, not only in Europe but in areas that directly threaten the United States, such as the Arctic. They understand geopolitics, which Trump doesn’t.

Trump should accept Zelenskyy’s offer to produce huge numbers of Ukrainian drones for America in exchange for essential U.S. weapons systems. This would not only counter Russian technological advances but would help provide the United States with battle-tested drone technology it lacks.

Of course, all of the above would require Trump to emerge from the bubble in which he still believes he can bend dictators and autocrats to his will by force of his personality. That is probably far too much to hope for.

One can only hope that Putin so overplays his hand in Alaska that even Trump understands he is being played for a fool — and opts not to shoot himself in the foot and Ukraine in the back.

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