August 18 2025: the world watches with apprehension the meeting between US President Donald Trump and European leaders.
After the August 15 meeting in Alaska, where Vladimir Putin reiterated his maximalist conditions for a ceasefire, there is only one question hovering: are Europe and the United States willing to sacrifice Ukraine on the altar of an agreement with Moscow?

The Kremlin’s demands – total surrender of Donetsk, demilitarisation of Ukraine, exclusion from NATO and an end to sanctions – are unacceptable to Kiev and much of the West. Yet with Trump at the helm of US foreign policy, the scenario of a negotiated sur render on Russian terms is no longer science fiction.

Putin’s conditions

During the summit in Alaska, Putin repeated a line that leaves no room for compromise:

• Handing over the entire Donetsk, including the last Ukrainian fortified line, which is the last bastion before the vast plains of central Ukraine.
  
• Demilitarisation of Ukraine, which would effectively turn it into a defenceless state subject to Russian influence.
  
• No NATO membership, a demand that also serves to leave the Cossack country vulnerable to a future resumption of hostilities.
  
• Animmediate end to sanctions would halt a disintegration of the Russian economy now in full swing.

These conditions are not new: they reflect the Putin doctrine of the past two decades, based on the limited sovereignty of the former Soviet states and the Russian right of veto over their political choices.

2. Zelensky between a rock and a hard place: why giving up Donetsk would be suicide

Such an ultimatum, however, could not be accepted by Zelensky even if he wanted to.
Polls show that only 10% of Ukrainians would accept the ceding of territories not yet conquered on the ground by Russia. But the reaction the president has to fear most would be that of the soldiers in the field: having seen thousands of their comrades end up maimed or killed defending the Donetsk line, they might become insubordinate when faced with the order to abandon it without a fight.

Security guarantees: an empty promise

On this, too, the Ukrainians have very clear ideas, both as public opinion and as the army. They demand concrete guarantees, not mere declarations as in the Budapest Memorandum (1994) – when Ukraine renounced its nuclear arsenal in exchange for protection that never came – or in the Minsk agreements (2014), violated twice by Moscow with new invasions.

The starting position from which Europe wants to negotiate, therefore, is simply that of the Ukrainians most willing to compromise: to compromise, however, not to commit suicide.

Europe between subalternity and possible redemption

Well, the European delegation sitting at the table with Trump today represents 20% of the global economy and three of the world’s 10 most powerful armies (France, Germany, UK).
Is it really going to merely ventriloquise Trump’s claims, who in turn ventriloquises Putin’s claims?

Perhaps it would if the demands were realistic (freezing the conflict along the current line and removing certain sanctions). But faced with totally unrealistic demands, which the Ukrainian authorities could not comply with even if they wanted to, a supine alignment of the Europeans seems rather unlikely.

The American right divided: hawks versus MAGA

In this regard, it is fashionable to observe that the Europeans are weak and divided among themselves, and to some extent this is certainly true. But even the Trump administration, on the Ukrainian issue, is far from a solid battleship.

After the meeting with Putin, Secretary of State Marco Rubio gave a lengthy television interview to CBS, in which he threw cold water on the enthusiasm for an easy agreement.
In another interview on the same day he seemed to throw cold water on cessions of territories not yet occupied by the Russians.

Now, Rubio represents the ‘old-fashioned’ hawks of the Republican party, not the new MAGA masters catapulted by Trump to his command.

But polls show that, on the war raging in faraway Europe, the party’s base has begun to sympathise decisively with Ukraine again. 51% of Republican voters call for more military support for Ukraine, 74% call for more sanctions against Russia and 84% have a negative view of Putin.

Would the American president really choose an unrealistic policy line opposed by the majority of his voters, even if it is his own of his loyalists, over a realistic policy line liked by his voters, even if it is promoted by the old hawks?

A Ukrainian ‘dirty war’: Zelensky’s last card

In the meantime, the Ukrainian military-industrial complex (with the silent help of the German military-industrial complex) has begun to prepare for the worst: the hypothesis of a lonely war, without Western support, but consequently fought in a ‘dirtier’ manner than the one the Ukrainians have chivalrously fought so far.

In the two weeks between August 2 and 17, Ukrainian drones struck refineries that processed 20% of Russian oil.
The attack, faster and more effective than in the past, caused the price of petrol to soar and almost disappear from the pumps in four regions (Vladivostok, Primorsk, Zabaikal, Buryatia) as well as in the occupied territories of Crimea and Luhansk.
A distribution station of the Druzhba pipeline, the one supplying Orbán’s Hungary, was also hit, causing severe fuel shortages there as well.

Then, on the night of August 18, the first photos of the Flamingo missile were released: with a range of 3,000 km and a 1,000 kg warhead, it would endanger some eighty Russian military bases and the Russian drone factory itself in Alabuga.
This is probably a gift from Chancellor Merz, who, unable to transfer the Taurus missiles as he had promised in the election campaign, had the patents transferred to Ukraine to build an indigenous weapon just as capable of hurting Russia.

Do the Americans and the Europeans really want to risk Ukraine waging a desperate fight alone and at loose ends, perhaps even starting to hit civilian targets?
Isn’t it better for everyone to let the status quo last until Russian resources are consumed (expected by the middle of next year)?

Conclusion: an encounter that will change everything

In short: the outcome of tonight’s meeting is not a foregone conclusion.

It could mark yet another submission of Europe to the will of Moscow and Washington, but it could also mark the end of the long American and Russian hegemony over the ‘old’ continent.

One thing is certain: after this summit, nothing will ever be the same again.