Power play Confusion around meeting suggests it is Russia, not the US, that is calling the shots

The problem for Kyiv is the deal Putin apparently pitched is significantly worse than simply freezing the lines

- Shaun Walker

In the five months since Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelenskyy met at the Oval Office in February, Ukrainian officials have worked hard to repair the damage of that day, which ended with the Ukrainian president being kicked out of the White House. With advice from European allies, Zelenskyy recalibrated his strategy for dealing with the Trump administration, and there was a feeling it was broadly going well. "We managed to reset communications, to find a new language to work with Trump," said one senior official in Kyiv last week.

It also seemed like Trump's rhetoric on the conflict was finally shifting, as he termed Russia's bombing of Ukrainian cities "disgusting" and set Putin a deadline of last Friday to stop the war or face new sanctions.

Then came the Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff's visit to Moscow last Wednesday. Putin appears to have made no big concessions during the three-hour Kremlin meeting, and was rewarded with an invitation to meet Trump in Alaska. The offer to thrash out a Ukrainian peace deal at a summit with Trump represents exactly the sort of great-power dealmaking that Putin has always craved. It will be his first trip to the US since 2007, with the exception of visits to the UN.

Exactly how the Alaska summit will look is still unclear, with a Trumpian kind of confusion and chaos accompanying its announcement. Kyiv, European capitals and Trump's own staff have been trying to understand what was agreed in the Kremlin.