Journal De Malte - Dueling interests for Trump and Putin at Alaska summit

- What does Trump want? -

The Nobel Peace Prize. Trump has openly and repeatedly sought the world's most prestigious award, however unlikely many observers think it is that the Norwegian committee would bestow the honor on the divisive president.

Trump has boasted of his deal-making skills and had vowed to end the Ukraine war within 24 hours, but his calls to Putin went unheeded even after Trump put heavy pressure on Zelensky to compromise, including by cutting US aid.

The billionaire has also said that he sees business opportunities in Russia, which remains under Western sanctions over the war.

Many European leaders fear that in a one-on-one meeting, Trump could fall under the sway of Putin, for whom he has voiced admiration in the past.

At a 2018 summit, Trump stunned viewers by siding with Putin over US intelligence in denying that Russia intervened in the 2016 US election to support Trump.

- What does Putin want? -

To retain as much Ukrainian territory as possible. Russia failed in its goal of quickly seizing Ukraine in its February 2022 invasion but in recent months has made steady gains on the battlefield, leading Putin to believe he has an upper hand militarily.

John Herbst, the former US ambassador to Ukraine, said that Putin already knows what a deal could look like -- a ceasefire, plus some form of security guarantees for Ukraine.

"That doesn't give Putin what he wants, which is control over all of Ukraine. But it doesn't matter what Putin wants. If he can't get anything more, he may settle for what's available," said Herbst, now senior director of the Atlantic Council's Eurasia Center.

Putin suggested the meeting with Trump after the US president threatened new sanctions on Russia unless it moves toward a ceasefire.

"The best-case scenario for Russia is… if they are able to put a deal on the table that creates some kind of a ceasefire, but that leaves Russia in control of those escalatory dynamics, [and] does not create any kind of genuine deterrence on the ground or in the skies over Ukraine," said Sam Greene, director for democratic resilience at the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA).

- What does Zelensky want? -

A seat at the negotiating table, and Russia out of Ukraine.

Zelensky will not participate in Trump's summit with Putin -- a sharp shift from previous US president Joe Biden's insistence on "nothing about Ukraine without Ukraine."

Trump has promised to involve Zelensky, possibly with a three-way summit -- if Putin agrees.

But Trump has also again insisted that Ukraine needs to make territorial concessions, which Zelensky has refused.

For Ukrainians, "It looks like it's two big powers that are just deciding the fate of Ukraine without any Ukrainians at the table," said Olga Tokariuk, also at CEPA.

For Ukraine, the best-case scenario would be no agreement between Putin and Trump and the imposition of new sanctions on Russia, she said.

But Herbst said Zelensky could accept a deal in which Russia controls what it has -- without formal recognition of its conquest.

Putin in turn would accept "that his notion of taking more of Ukraine and restoring the Russian Empire is kaput," Herbst said.

- Why Alaska? -

Putin will be stepping foot on western soil for the first time since the war began. He faces an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court in The Hague, to which the United States is not a party.

Alaska carries historic significance as the United States bought it from tsarist Russia in 1867.

Russia has pointed to Alaska as it makes the case that it is normal to transfer land. Ukraine's borders date from the breakup of the Soviet Union, although Russia in 2014 seized the Crimean peninsula in an annexation unrecognized by nearly all countries.

C.Muscat--JdM