Trump is Throwing a Hail Mary on Russia, But Putin is Likely to Intercept the Ball

And India is being thrown under the bus.

Russian leader Vladimir Putin meeting with U.S. Special Envoy Steve Witkoff on August 6. (Kremlin/Creative Commons 4.0)

Imagine a football game. The quarterback sees a receiver open a few yards down the field, but he lobs the ball into the end zone for a touchdown. However, the pass is more likely to be caught by the opposing team.

This football scenario is how I see the news that U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian leader Vladimir Putin plan to meet in person next week as Trump hopes to end the war in Ukraine. There are things that the U.S. could do to advance U.S. interests on Ukraine, but Trump is hoping for a touchdown -- a ceasefire deal that might net him the Nobel Peace Prize. However, the result is more likely to be a propaganda coup for the Kremlin.

This planned meeting originated as U.S. Special Envoy Steve Witkoff met with Putin in Moscow on August 6. While the Kremlin released a photo of the two men grinning and called the three-hour talks "useful" and "constructive," there was no indication that Moscow had budged from its maximalist negotiating position. Nevertheless, Trump gushed about the meeting on social media, calling it "highly productive."

The White House floated the idea of a second meeting to follow Trump's meeting with Putin, with the two leaders and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Zelenskyy responded that he was once again willing to meet with Putin. However, Putin poured cold water on the idea. While he said he was not "against" such a meeting, he said that "certain conditions" had to be met for a meeting, and that there was "still a long haul ahead" for the creation of such conditions. Putin likely was referring to his long-stated demand that a settlement address the "root causes" of the war, which would effectively mean Ukraine's surrender. (No Ukrainian leader could ever accept the Kremlin's "root causes" and agree to a highly circumscribed army, no hope for joining NATO, and large territorial losses.)

While a Trump-Putin meeting seems likely enough, color me skeptical that a three-way meeting will happen. So what will happen at this bilateral summit, which seems to have been planned on the fly and where Trump has expressed no willingness to exert real leverage on Russia? Putin and Trump will likely meet, which would in itself be a huge propaganda victory for the Kremlin: Trump would be bringing Putin in from the cold of Western isolation, three years after U.S. President Joe Biden said he "cannot remain in power."