Ukraine, left out at Trump-Poutin’s summit, fears setbacks on key peace issues

London – The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, warned that Friday’s meeting between President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin “will not achieve anything” if peace conversations exclude Ukraine.

The decisions taken without kyiv’s contribution will be “dead decisions,” Zelenskyy continued. “They are involuntary decisions. And we all need real and genuine peace,” the president said in a speech to the nation last weekend.

Ukrainian expectations for the summit in Alaska are low, amid fears in kyiv that US and Russian leaders will seek to dictate the future of Ukraine without their participation.

However, Zelenskyy’s conversations with European leaders and Trump on Wednesday, seemed to find a consensus on key Ukrainian demands according to the subsequent statements of Zelenskyy and his European counterparts, including that kyiv will be the one that will decide on any territorial concession and that such concessions can occur without binding security guarantees.

“We must learn from Ukraine’s experience, [and] Our partners, to avoid Russia’s deception, “Zelenskyy said in a statement published on social networks on Wednesday.

“There is no signal now that Russians are preparing to end war,” he added. “Our coordinated efforts and joint steps, of Ukraine, United States, Europe, all countries that want peace, can definitely force Russia to make peace.”

Trump said Wednesday after the virtual meeting with Zelenskyy and European leaders who will be “serious consequences” against Russia if Putin did not agree to stop his war against Ukraine.

Oleksandr Merezhko, a member of the Ukrainian Parliament and president of the Body Foreign Affairs Committee, compared the next Alaska Summit to the Munich agreement of 1938, an agreement of the Second World War for which the European powers allowed Nazi Germany that annexes part of Czechoslovakia without the consent of Prague.

“Putin assured an individual meeting with Trump, providing the opportunity to influence American politics and press for the abandonment of Ukraine and European allies,” Merezhko told ABC News.

“Putin would like to use the summit to persuade Trump to blame Ukraine for lack of progress in a high fire and give him a pretext to get away from negotiations,” said Merezhko.

“Putin is a very masterful manipulator and will enter the well -prepared Friday meeting,” Merezhko added. “It will enter with well -prepared, planned and rehearsed conversation points.”

John E. Herbst, a former United States ambassador to Ukraine who now works at the Eurasia Center of the Atlantic Council, said Putin “wants an agreement with Trump that will be presented to kyiv and other European capitals as an accomplished fact.”

The Kremlin objectives are still “the elimination of Ukraine as a state and as a culture, elimination of NATO and the undercut of the global positions of the United States,” a Russian political analyst from the Law of Law and Diplomacy of Fletcher in Tufts told ABC News.

There are several key, and thorny problems, so that the two leaders discuss.

Territory

The territory has been a main source of conflict between the two countries since the annexation of Russia of Crima and the encouragement of the separatist revolt in eastern Ukraine in 2014.

Putin has remained firm in his demands. He said that any peace agreement, Moscow, must include the “international legal recognition” of its Crimea annexation in 2014 of Crimea and four regions that has occupied various titles since it launched its large -scale invasion in 2022.

Russia demanded that Ukrainian troops be completely withdrawn from Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions, including areas that Russian troops do not control. The Kremlin claimed to have annexed the four regions in September 2022. Moscow also wants Kyiv to give up any design to recover occupied Crimea.

Before Friday’s meeting, Trump suggested that an “exchange of territories” could lead to a peace agreement. However, Ukrainian officials quickly rejected that idea.

Zelenskyy said that the country would not give up any of their lands, saying in a Saturday statement: “The Ukrainians will not give their land to the occupants.” Since then, the president has said that Ukraine must make decisions on territorial concessions, and that such concessions cannot occur without Ukraine receiving binding security guarantees including the United States.

NATO ambitions

Russian officials are also looking for their own “security guarantees” with respect to NATO, through which Ukraine would be permanently excluded from the Alliance, which has a mutual defense agreement among the members.

Putin has regularly expressed concern about the expansion east of NATO, framing alliance growth as a threat of existential security for Russia. He has repeatedly warned the alliance that Ukraine does not accept as a member, accusing the organization of trying to turn the country into a launch platform for aggression.

Russia’s Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs, Alexander Grushko, said in March that Moscow is looking for “the neutral state of Ukraine, the refusal of NATO countries to accept it in the alliance.”

Ukrainian officials have continued in their attempt to join NATO, an ambition that has the support of the vast majority of Ukrainians and is enshrined in the National Constitution.

During a press conference earlier this year, Zelenskyy offered to renounce the presidency in exchange for admission to NATO. “If to achieve peace, you really need to give up my publication, I am ready. I can change it for the NATO membership, if there are such conditions.”

NATO’s nations, while supporting Ukraine in their defensive war, have refused to allow kyiv’s adhesion to the Alliance. The alliance agreed at a 2008 summit that Ukraine “will become a member of NATO”, but the leaders of the key allied nations, including the United States, have said that kyiv cannot access while it is at war.

Limits to the Ukraine Army

Russian officials have demanded limits to the size of the Ukraine Army, which Moscow has framed as necessary to guarantee its own security, a claim dismissed by kyiv as false.

During the peace negotiations on the opening days of the large -scale invasion, Moscow demanded that Ukraine reduce its military size at 50,000.

However, Zelenskyy has expressed concern that any reduction to the Ukraine army can allow Russia to ensure more Ukrainian lands, even with Western support. “The best thing is a strong army, a great army, the largest army in Europe. We simply have no right to limit the strength of our army in any case,” he said in December.

Russia also requires limits in the Arsenales of Weapons of Ukraine and the sophistication of its military technology.

In the days prior to Friday’s meeting between Trump and Putin, Ukraine has increased its attacks of non -manned aircraft to Russia. Ukrainian officials have said that such attacks are part of their strategy to force Kremlin to genuine peace conversations.

Sanctions

The lifting of international sanctions to Russia can also be discussed during Friday’s meeting.

Russia is currently the most sanctioned country in the world with “50,000 more or less measures,” according to the Center for European Policies Analysis. Russian officials have declared that a peace treaty must include the lifting sanctions imposed since 2022.

The European Union has rejected requests to reduce sanctions against Russia before ensuring a peace agreement, and Zelenskyy has called Putin’s suggestion that reductions could lead to a lasting peace “manipulative”.

Trump has threatened to impose more sanctions on Russia and its main commercial partners if Putin does not commit to a high fire. Earlier this month, the United States announced additional tariffs on India related to its Russian oil purchases.

“Everyone see that there has not been a real step from Russia towards peace, no action in the field or in the air that can save lives,” Zelenskyy said earlier this week. “That is why sanctions are needed, pressure is needed.”

Patrick Reevell of ABC News contributed to this report.