(Reuters) – US President Donald Trump will meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin on August 15 in Alaska to negotiate an end to the war in Ukraine, Trump confirmed Friday, a meeting that Russia scholar Sergey Radchenko said may hold higher stakes for Trump, as a would-be peacemaker, than for the Russian leader.
"It's going to be sort of humiliating for Trump if nothing comes out of this, said Radchenko, a professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. "He will have given all that recognition to Putin and then get nothing out of this."
Trump made the highly-anticipated announcement on social media after he said that the parties, including Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, were close to a ceasefire deal that could resolve the three-and-a-half-year conflict, one that could require Ukraine to surrender significant territory.
Addressing reporters at the White House earlier on Friday, Trump suggested an agreement would involve some exchange of land. "There'll be some swapping of territories to the betterment of both," the Republican president said.
"The person who has to ask the most is, of course, President Zelensky, who's already sounding alarm bells in his commentary," said Radchenko.
President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Saturday that Ukraine could not violate its constitution on the territorial issues, adding that "Ukrainians will not gift their land to the occupiers."
The Kremlin confirmed the summit in an online statement.