[ALASKA SUMMIT] All Russia Needs to Do Is Go Home

Vladimir Putin looked like he loved every minute of it.

Mr. Putin, the president of Russia, the man who has proclaimed that my country shouldn’t exist — that it’s a historical mistake, to be fixed by Russian soldiers — was welcomed effusively to Alaska by the president of the United States. Mr. Putin exited his plane and diplomatic isolation and walked a red carpet like an honored guest.

His smile was triumphant. Was it confidence that he was going to get away with everything he’s done? Or was it the anticipation of getting what he wanted: a subjugated Ukraine and a weakened trans-Atlantic alliance? Perhaps it was both.

Americans may have cringed, but for Ukrainians, watching Mr. Putin smirk and laugh was revolting.

The meeting between Mr. Putin and President Trump on Friday was a stark reminder of a simple truth: that the real barrier, the only real barrier, between Mr. Trump and peace in Ukraine (and his coveted Nobel Prize) is Mr. Putin. Russia could end the war in Ukraine at any moment by stopping its attacks and withdrawing its forces. By simply going home. Mr. Putin could end it with a phone call.

Mr. Putin — and sometimes, Mr. Trump — has tried to frame Ukraine as the obstacle to peace. But let’s think about how Ukraine could end this war on terms that Mr. Putin would accept: by giving him everything. By relinquishing territory that tens of thousands have died defending, forgoing the prospect of ever joining NATO or the European Union, agreeing not to maintain a military strong enough to defend itself and installing a puppet government pliant to Mr. Putin. By agreeing, in effect, to cease to exist.

To a Ukrainian — and surely to most people — the idea of handing anything, never mind everything, to an invader that has brought death and destruction to a peaceful country, seems exactly backward.

A recent Gallup poll showed that 69 percent of Ukrainians want the war to end in a negotiation, and soon. That majority, up from 22 percent in 2022, the first year of Russia’s full-scale invasion, has been widely interpreted as showing that Ukrainians are now willing to compromise. But it’s more complicated than that. Other polls that have more precisely parsed the question of ending the war — Do Ukrainians want to cede territories to Russia to end the war? — have shown a majority still saying “no.”

That’s not stubbornness. It’s a healthy and justified rejection of injustice.

As I watched the meeting on a livestream in the small hours of Saturday morning in Kyiv, my phone was lighting up with alerts that Russian drones were targeting Ukrainian cities — just as they do almost every night. It was additional proof, if it were needed, that the man on the red carpet had no serious intention of making peace.

What did Mr. Trump get for his pampering? When the two presidents emerged from their meeting, Mr. Trump warmly praised the discussion and talked vaguely of making “some headway,” but said they hadn’t reached an agreement. Ahead of the meeting, Mr. Trump had seemed to be moving toward a tougher approach to Russia, and he had made assurances to Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukraine’s president, and European leaders just a few days before that any peace deal must begin with a cease-fire and not be negotiated without Ukraine at the table.

But afterward, there was no suggestion of a plan for new sanctions on Russia, or deadlines or demands for a swift cease-fire. Instead, Mr. Trump is now apparently suggesting that the sides should go for an all encompassing peace deal based on Ukraine ceding the rest of the eastern Donbas region — including some areas not occupied by Russian troops — rather than insisting on a cease-fire first. This is naturally the idea preferred by Russia. After the meeting, Mr. Putin, still smiling, appeared not to have moved on anything.

Mr. Trump, driven by impatience and his on-again-off-again friendship with Mr. Putin, now again on the upswing, may yet try to force Ukraine to end the war on Russia’s terms.

But accepting any Russian deal above the Ukrainians’ heads would be an affront to the memory of the tens of thousands of Ukrainians who have died defending their land. It would be a slap in the face of the civilians who have fled to make them watch a Russian flag rise above their destroyed homes. It would be the end of hope for the Ukrainians living in the territories occupied by Russia.

At the Kyiv Independent, the Ukrainian media organization where I work, part of our job in the days before the summit was finding out what Ukrainians thought about the meeting.

“What were so many deaths for?” Nataliia Prykhodko, a widow of a Ukrainian soldier, told a colleague. “How can they decide our fate without us?”

Oleksii Ladyka, a soldier, described how it felt to read about discussions of land swaps from the battlefield in eastern Ukraine. “When you talk about Donetsk Oblast like a hot cake that can be passed around,” he said, “I want them to remember that everyone here has their own family, has their loved ones, has a hope and a wish for a peaceful life and a future for their children, just like anyone anywhere in the world.”

On Monday, Mr. Zelensky, who was excluded from the summit, was scheduled to meet Mr. Trump in the White House. Ukrainians fully expect to be framed as the obstacle to peace in the coming days and weeks.

To that, let me just say again to those who are still listening: Russia could just go home.