Explained Interview | What to expect from the Trump-Putin meeting

Russia may be challenged if NATO enters the war but that could lead to a quick escalation to the nuclear level. This is why NATO, while supporting Ukraine’s war efforts, has been very careful not to cross certain red lines. This is unlikely to change.

In this context, what does a meeting between President Donald Trump and President Vladimir Putin aim to achieve?

The two leaders will enter the meeting with very different expectations.

Trump will hope to extract some kind of a promise from Putin — at the very least of a ceasefire that will halt the fighting. Trump believes he has the personality and the leverage to get Putin to agree to whatever he wants.

But Russia’s President is unlikely to agree to any deal unless he is given guarantees that Ukraine will never become a member of NATO and will not receive any security guarantees from the West. Moreover, Putin will insist that the territories his forces have captured, including Crimea, be recognised as Russian.

Is Putin likely to receive these guarantees?

During his presidential campaign and in the first months of his presidency, Trump indicated that he was willing to consider several of Russia’s demands.

The US President does not see Ukraine as a part of NATO, a grouping that he personally doesn’t appear to be too invested in. Trump and members of his administration had also indicated that they were not averse to Ukraine ceding territory to Russia to end the war.

Trump does not consider the war in Ukraine to be a legacy that he has to continue. Given that Ukraine is not that strategically important to the US, Trump does not see the war as a path to achieving American dominance in world affairs. In fact, he was trying to push Ukraine into accepting these demands, as his public bust-up with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the White House made clear.

But with the so-called peace deal not coming together, Trump, who sees himself as a great peacemaker, is irritated. The pro-Ukrainian lobby in the US has had time to work on him, and the President seems to have had a change of heart since the end of May. The President also seems to have been cornered by his own rhetoric. Having signed agreements with Ukraine, talked about the country’s sovereignty, and reopened arms supplies, he will find it difficult to walk back to his older position.

Nevertheless, the Russians have said that Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff had during his talks with Putin on August 6 presented an “acceptable” offer for peace. This is an indication that the US appears to be seriously considering Russia’s concerns about Europe’s security architecture.

Can Trump’s secondary sanctions compel Putin to agree to a deal?

Trump undoubtedly is using these secondary sanctions as leverage to get Russia to the negotiating table.

The problem for Russia is that these secondary sanctions affect other countries, such as China and India. Russia has survived a lot of sanctions and, in a sense, built a sanctions-proof economy. But Russia will suffer if — and this is still a big if — it is unable to sell its natural resources or trade with the world. A substantial part of its budget comprises taxes on exported natural resources including oil and gas.

At the same time, from a Russian perspective, they are fighting an existential threat. Ukraine becoming a part of NATO, meaning that Western countries could put their weapon systems and people on Ukrainian soil, is a red line for Russia. Given this aim, it is unlikely that Russia will compromise due to economic pressure.

Putin may indeed agree to a ceasefire, but he will only do so if it suits Russia’s interests. Given the stakes for him and the state of the war, he is very much in the driver’s seat.

Where does this leave Ukraine?

Zelenskyy had hoped that by signing the critical minerals deal with the US, the Americans would be forced to enter the war to protect their own interests in the minerals covered under the deal. But Trump’s likely meeting with Putin indicates that the deal alone is not enough for the US to commit to war.

The Ukrainian President has been calling up various European leaders and trying to get himself invited to the Trump-Putin meeting. He is worried that Putin may be able to persuade Trump to accept some of the positions that Russia has been voicing from the beginning of the war — which the American President himself does not appear to be fundamentally against.

What are the implications for Europe, whose leaders have framed the war as an existential threat to the continent?

There is not a shred of evidence that any European leader can provide about Russia’s aggressive intentions towards even the Baltic countries, let alone Western Europe. This is a scare that European elites created and ingrained in people’s minds as a distraction from the situation on the continent.

Europe is facing a recession. The European Union, at least Germany, which has long been the locomotive of the EU’s development, is facing deindustrialisation. There are fundamental issues with the economic model that the EU had going: they were buying cheap energy from Russia to make products to sell to the world, particularly China. Now, they are being squeezed at both ends. The war has stopped the flow of Russian gas to Europe, and the Americans are pressuring the EU to restrict its interactions with China.

As the European economies struggle, it is the European elites — and not Europe itself — who face an existential crisis. If they were to back out of supporting Ukraine now, they would definitely not survive in power, especially with far right parties already posing serious challenges to traditional political elites. Europe’s elites are, in effect, stuck: they cannot help Ukraine win the war, but ending it by acquiescing to Russian demands will be an unacceptable defeat.

For India, what does a Trump-Putin meeting entail?

India is caught in Trump’s attempt to exert leverage on Russia. His “extra” tariffs have put India in a difficult position. To use a phrase used by former National Security Adviser J N Dixit, India will need to do a “complicated Bharatnatyam dance” to extricate itself from this situation.

The US is our largest trading partner. It is also one of the few countries with which India has a trade surplus that offsets, at least partially, the deficit we have with China and Russia.

India is not a fully export-oriented economy, and the tariffs, as they are structured, provide India with some wiggle room. For example, petroleum products, pharmaceuticals and IT products are exempt from the tariffs imposed for import of Russian crude. India has to decide whether ceasing to buy cheap oil from Russia is worth the hit that American tariffs will entail.

This is also about the country’s image. If India gives in to Trump’s demands it is likely to be perceived as “weak” and its image as a global leader is likely to be hit. This also will have to be part of the calculations on how India should proceed.

In this difficult situation, the best would be if Trump and Putin were to agree on a roadmap to peace next week. Such an agreement would likely make the threat of additional tariffs irrelevant.

Nandan Unnikrishnan is Distinguished Fellow at the Observer Research Foundation, New Delhi. He spoke to A