The Trump Putin Summit..

[C C]

Meh. Didn't realize there was one for the 16th. A new assessment will probably be released tomorrow.

Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, August 16, 2025
https://www.understandingwar.org/backgro...st-16-2025

KEY TAKEAWAYS:

• Various US officials indicated that Russian President Vladimir Putin may be willing to compromise on some war termination demands, but Putin's own statements and Russian official statements contradict these claims.
  
  
• It is unclear what Putin offered in his meeting with Trump beyond reiterating his demand for Donetsk Oblast and offering a limited ceasefire with no known timeframe in Zaporizhia and Kherson oblasts.
  
  
• Putin’s demand for all of Donetsk Oblast is the most clear and consistent demand coming out of the Alaska Summit.
  
  
• Ukrainian forces would not be able to conduct a safe and orderly withdrawal from unoccupied Donetsk Oblast in accordance with Putin's demand without a full ceasefire across the entire theater, however
  
  
• ISW continues to assess that a potential Ukrainian withdrawal from Donetsk Oblast would degrade Ukraine's defensive capabilities and defense industrial base (DIB) and put hundreds of thousands more Ukrainian civilians under Russian occupation. Ukraine would require robust international security guarantees and the immediate deployment of an international peacekeeping contingent to deter future Russian aggression.
  
  
• Seizing the remainder of Donetsk Oblast would likely be a difficult and years-long effort for Russian forces rather than a quick effort as Putin likely aims to portray, as Russian forces remain unable to secure operationally significant advances or advance faster than foot pace.
  
  
• Putin's reported rejection of a full ceasefire in Ukraine and the ongoing Russian offensives in Kharkiv and Sumy oblasts indicate that Putin intends to continue his war in Ukraine while negotiations are ongoing — a point that Russian Security Council Deputy Chairperson Dmitry Medvedev welcomed.
  
  
• The Kremlin reportedly instructed Russian media outlets to present the Alaska summit as a meeting between two superpowers and to prepare Russian society for the possibility of a protracted war in Ukraine.
  
  
• Russian officials continue rhetorical campaigns designed to undermine Ukraine's sovereignty and peace negotiations and to legitimize Russia's war in Ukraine.
  
  
• Ukrainian forces likely cleared several settlements within the Russian penetration northeast of Dobropillya.
  
  
• Ukrainian forces advanced near Pokrovsk and Velykomykhailivka. Russian forces advanced near Siversk.

[Syne]

Who thought Putin would stop the war for negotiations? The Alaska Summit was a first step toward negotiating either a ceasefire or end to the war.

[Yazata]

Ukrainian President Zelensky has arrived in the United States for his meeting with President Trump in the White House tomorrow. And not only has Zelensky arrived, he was accompanied by a who's-who of top European leaders.

French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, Finland President Alexander Stubb and NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte!

While nobody is saying anything officially, talk is that President Zelensky and his delegation will first meet with President Trump and his team including Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Vice President J.D. Vance. And if Zelensky is agreeable to the deal that Trump will reportedly put before him (they have already discussed it on the phone and Zelensky has decided to come to Washington, so he very well might) then the other European leaders will be invited in to formulate European security guarantees. (At least that's the speculation.)

Russia would still have to officially agree, but since Trump's plan was concocted in light of what Putin told him in Alaska, Russia very well might.

I'm cautiously hopeful that a path might be found to end the Ukraine War, the biggest war in Europe since World War II. President Trump is certainly giving it his best shot.

[Syne]

At least this time there's enough European players involved. Last time Zelenskyy visited, he was only making security guarantee demands on the US.

Donald Trump's special envoy said Russia had agreed to allow the US and Europe to give Ukraine "robust" security guarantees as part of a potential peace deal.

Steve Witkoff told CNN it was agreed at the Alaska summit that the US and Europe could "effectively offer Article 5-like language to cover a security guarantee", referring to Nato's principle that an attack on one member is an attack on all.

Putin has long opposed Ukraine joining Nato, and Witkoff said the arrangement could be an alternative if the Ukrainians "can live with it".

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky described the US's security guarantee offer as "historic" ahead of talks with Trump and European leaders on Monday.
- https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/crm4ln2ekg1o

[C C]

Setting aside Zelenskyy's most recent assertions of never giving up any territory (the ultimate impasse)... Even on the super-optimistic side, it's difficult to imagine him withdrawing from what Ukraine still retains of the Donetsk Oblast and two other oblasts until the proposed "Article 5-like protection" security guarantee is actually physically instantiated in some manner. Not just promised.
- - - - - - - - - - - -

Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, August 17, 2025
https://www.understandingwar.org/backgro...st-17-2025

KEY TAKEAWAYS:

• US officials acknowledged that Putin has yet to demonstrate a willingness to offer the concessions necessary to reach a peace agreement.
  
  
• Russia will be unable to seize the remainder of Donetsk Oblast rapidly through force, as Russian forces have failed to do for over a decade. Russia could only rapidly seize all of Donetsk Oblast if Ukraine concedes to Putin's demand and withdraws from the remainder of the oblast.
  
  
• Russian forces have historically thrown themselves into costly campaigns to seize fortified or urban areas in eastern Ukraine, a reality far from Putin's claims of rapid advances.
  
  
• Recent Russian advances northeast of Pokrovsk do not indicate that Russia can rapidly seize fortified or urban areas.
  
  
• Russia continues to deny Ukraine's sovereignty and to demand the right to dictate Ukrainian domestic affairs.
  
  
• Russian President Vladimir Putin's insistence that any peace agreement must address Russia's perceived "root causes" of the war will make it difficult to reach a peace agreement as rapidly as Trump desires, given the complexity of the "root causes."
  
  
• Russia's "root causes" extend beyond Ukraine, and eliminating them would require substantial negotiations with NATO.
  
  
• Putin's offer of a Russian law forbidding a future invasion of Ukraine is not credible because Russia has already twice broken previous binding international commitments not to invade and because Putin has shown that he can freely change Russian law as he desires.
  
  
• The details about Ukrainian security guarantees to which Putin may have agreed remain unclear at this time, but the Kremlin may be attempting to resurrect its demands about security guarantors from April 2022 that would have neutered such guarantees.
  
  
• Ukrainian forces recently advanced in northern Sumy Oblast and near Toretsk. Russian forces recently advanced near Pokrovsk.

[Syne]

understandingwar.org (ISW) is considered hawkish (advocating aggressive military policy) and neoconservative (interventionist).
Both of these seem to account for the above pessimism. We'll see if it's warranted.

[Yazata]

understandingwar.org (ISW) is considered hawkish (advocating aggressive military policy) and neoconservative (interventionist).
Both of these seem to account for the above pessimism. We'll see if it's warranted.

I totally agree.

I'm inclined to perceive ISW as kind of a proxy for the "Deep State", laden as it is with former Generals and CIA spooks. They certainly are influential in Washington and with the media though, kind of a very-hawkish shadow foreign policy establishment.

(I've used their maps because they are pretty much the only ones available these days, despite their clear Ukrainian bias.)

What worries me is that they are trying their damnedest to trap the United States into some kind of "Article-5 like" committment to go to war with Russia (which would likely go nuclear) if Ukraine is attacked. I don't believe that we should put ourselves (and the world) into that kind of position, which certainly serves Ukraine's interests but not our own. Hopefully Trump, Vance and Rubio push back against that and remember their America first principles.

But Zelensky isn't going to sign a peace agreement unless he gets the "Article-5 like" committment. That's why I believe that he should get one, but with Europe and Britain, but not with the United States.

---

President Trump and President Zelensky just held a news conference.

Trump said that primary responsibility for security guarantees will be with Europe, but the US will be involved and isn't walking away. I get the impression that the details of that remain to be worked out, which is why all the European leaders are there.

Apparently Trump will be calling Putin right after today's meetings end. If today's talks succeed, the next step would be a "trilateral" meeting with Zelensky, Putin and Trump, to sign a final peace accord. Trump says that if they get to that point, he's very hopeful the war will end. (Since they would have worked out most of the details before the meeting.)

[Syne]

understandingwar.org (ISW) is considered hawkish (advocating aggressive military policy) and neoconservative (interventionist).
Both of these seem to account for the above pessimism. We'll see if it's warranted.

I totally agree.

I'm inclined to perceive ISW as kind of a proxy for the "Deep State", laden as it is with former Generals and CIA spooks. They certainly are influential in Washington and with the media though, kind of a very-hawkish shadow foreign policy establishment.

(I've used their maps because they are pretty much the only ones available these days, despite their clear Ukrainian bias.)

What worries me is that they are trying their damnedest to trap the United States into some kind of "Article-5 like" committment to go to war with Russia (which would likely go nuclear) if Ukraine is attacked. I don't believe that we should put ourselves (and the world) into that kind of position, which certainly serves Ukraine's interests but not our own. Hopefully Trump, Vance and Rubio push back against that and remember their America first principles.

But Zelensky isn't going to sign a peace agreement unless he gets the "Article-5 like" committment. That's why I believe that he should get one, but with Europe and Britain, but not with the United States.

Deep State proxy, at least of the establishment right, is a good description.

I took "Article-5 like" to mean only between Europe and Ukraine. Anything more than that would be NATO protection in all but name, and neither Russia nor the US (those interested in avoiding WWIII) want that. Hopefully the US only needs to be a threat (tariffs, sanctions, etc.) to keep European countries from reneging on any security agreement.

[C C]

Winter War: The Winter War was a war between the Soviet Union and Finland. It began with a Soviet invasion of Finland on 30 November 1939, three months after the outbreak of World War II, and ended three and a half months later with the Moscow Peace Treaty on 13 March 1940. Despite superior military strength, especially in tanks and aircraft, the Soviet Union suffered severe losses and initially made little headway. The League of Nations deemed the attack illegal and expelled the Soviet Union from its organization...

2WAY
https://youtu.be/X8Ln6ORigfM

“Trump broke the deadlock with Putin” ... “We didn’t have this under the Biden administration”

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/X8Ln6ORigfM