Trump Agrees on Ukraine Red Lines With Europe Before Summit With Putin

Wall Street Journal MSN News ^ | 8/13/2025 | Bojan Pancevski

[marcusmaximus]

President Trump agreed with European leaders including Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to red lines for the coming talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska and said he hoped to follow up quickly with a trilateral summit with the two warring leaders.

-snip-

“President Trump was very clear that the American desire was to obtain a cease-fire at this meeting in Alaska,” Macron told reporters after the meeting.

-snip-

While Trump’s decision last week to meet Putin on American soil worried Europeans, trans-Atlantic relations have since warmed. In a flurry of calls and meetings, senior U.S. officials—including Trump, Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio—signaled their readiness to coordinate closely with Europe on securing a cease-fire and a “fair deal” to end the war, according to participants and briefed officials.

European diplomats said they were particularly impressed by Vance, who met with them in England on Saturday. He showed a strong interest in aligning trans-Atlantic positions ahead of the Putin talks and had a detailed understanding of the situation, participants said.

“They are great people who want to see a deal done,” Trump said of his European partners on Truth Social on Wednesday.

European leaders and Zelensky presented Trump with five succinct red lines to carry into the Alaska summit: a cease-fire as a prerequisite for further talks; any territorial discussions to start from the current front lines; binding Western security guarantees that Russia must accept; Ukraine’s participation in the talks; and support from both the U.S. and Europe, including Ukraine, for any deal.

They relayed to Trump that there would be no legal recognition of occupied territories by Ukraine or Europe, but that a recognition of the situation on the ground could be part of a future deal, several participants said.

[tballard56]

There will be no ceasefire. I think the Russians are pretty firm on that. I do think Putin will offer Trump up some sort of symbolic victory so he can thump his chest and call it a win while Russia essentially gives up nothing. And why should Russia give up anything? They are clearly winning and the Ukrainian army is quickly collapsing. In reality, if nothing was done, Russia could likely wrap things up by the end of the year or early spring 2026. There is absolutely no incentive for Russia to give up anything meaningful.