“The president has often raised the prospect of meeting with Putin, though it’s unclear when or where such a summit would take place.”

Bolton: Putin will ‘take advantage’ of meeting with Trump

“Mr. Trump has long sought a direct meeting with Mr. Putin, declaring publicly that a problem like Ukraine could only be resolved with a meeting between the two top leaders. He also said last week that he expects to see President Xi Jinping of China before the end of the year. And he seems reluctant to impose more tariffs or sanctions ahead of those meetings. In fact, his deadline for Mr. Putin to declare a cease-fire or face crushing “secondary sanctions” melted away on Friday without a mention from Mr. Trump, other than that people should wait for his meeting with Mr. Putin. The fact that Mr. Trump is even meeting with Mr. Putin represents a small victory for the Russian president, Ms. Guenov said. “Trump still has given Putin the benefit of the doubt, and that dynamic is one Putin will attempt to exploit even beyond this meeting,” she added. While Mr. Trump has insisted that an understanding between himself and the Russian president is crucial to a broader peace, Mr. Putin, Ms. Guenov said, would certainly welcome any land concessions Mr. Trump is willing to grant. Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT Already the president has signaled that is where these talks are headed. Mr. Trump on Friday suggested that a peace deal between the two countries could include “some swapping of territories,” signaling that the United States may join Russia in trying to compel Ukraine to permanently cede some of its land — the suggestion flatly rejected by Mr. Zelensky. “We’re going to get some back, and we’re going to get some switched,” said Mr. Trump, leaving unclear who the “we” in that statement was. “There’ll be some swapping of territories to the betterment of both, but we’ll be talking about that either later, or tomorrow.” Russian officials have demanded that Ukraine cede the four regions that Moscow claimed to have “annexed” from Ukraine in late 2022, even as some of that land remains under Ukrainian control. And Russia is seeking a formal declaration that the Crimean peninsula is once again its territory. (Yalta, where the meeting of three great powers was held 80 years ago, is a resort city on the southern coast of Crimea.) Until late last week, it appeared likely that the meeting between Mr. Trump and Mr. Putin would be held on the traditional neutral grounds of the old Cold War, perhaps in Geneva or Vienna. President Joseph R. Biden Jr. saw Mr. Putin in Geneva in June 2021, eight months before the Ukraine invasion, for what turned out to be the only face-to-face meeting of their presidencies. Image President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia and Russian officials have demanded that Ukraine cede the four regions that Moscow claimed to have “annexed” from Ukraine. And Russia is seeking a declaration that the Crimean peninsula is once again its territory. Credit...Pool photo by Mikhail Metzel Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT Mr. Putin’s willingness to venture into American territory was striking, not least because his arrival in the United States will signal the end of his political and legal isolation from the country. In the past few months, Mr. Trump has terminated efforts at the Justice Department and the State Department to collect evidence of war crimes committed by Russia during its invasion of Ukraine. But inviting Mr. Putin to meet in the United States seemed to extinguish any threat that the United States would provide evidence to the prosecution. “It’s bewildering how we could bring in somebody the International Criminal Court has classified as a war criminal,” said Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, the president of the Yale Chief Executive Leadership Institute, who has tracked many of the Russian violations. But he emphasized that Mr. Putin is entering the meeting with Mr. Trump in an extraordinarily weak position economically, and that it would benefit U.S. negotiators to realize how few cards Russia holds. “The mystical illusion of power that Putin creates is as real as the Wizard of Oz,” Mr. Sonnenfeld said. “The Russian economy has been imploding. Trump doesn’t seem to realize that.” Mr. Sonnenfeld cautioned Mr. Trump against any deal in which Ukraine would give up rights to the Donbas region, particularly given the agreement that the Trump administration negotiated for the United States to share in future revenues from Ukraine’s mineral reserves through a joint investment fund. “Giving up the Donbas would be disastrous,” he said. “That is where a lot of these valuable minerals are.” Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT”

In a Trump-Putin Summit, Ukraine Fears Losing Say Over Its Future