Just four days left until the Summit in Alaska.

Since the announcement of the time and place for the Trump-Putin meeting and the hoped-for advancement toward an end of the war in Ukraine, both sides have been busy.

Donald Trump has spoken to Ukrainian President Zelensky, and to leaders of the EU and several allied European leaders, all of whom (except perhaps Trump) are in agreement that no settlement can be finalized without Ukraine’s participation and consent.

Trump has said his goal is simply to end the war and stop the killing, as he has been promising to do since before the last election. The implication is that he doesn’t require anyone’s consent to do what he loves best: make a deal.

In Moscow, Vladimir Putin has conferred with Chinese President Xi and Indian Prime Minister Modi — Russia’s two biggest trading partners — as well as South African President Cyril Ramaphosa and UAE President Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan. [Reuters, August 8, 2025.] It is no coincidence that all of those countries are members of BRICS, and strong supporters of Russia.

Putin, through his foreign policy advisor Yuri Ushakov, has said that the meeting will “focus on discussing options for achieving a long-term peaceful resolution to the Ukrainian crisis.” [Andy Wells and James Cheng-Morris, Yahoo!news, August 10, 2025.]

We know that he never asks anyone’s consent to do anything.

And in Washington yesterday, JD Vance weighed in on Fox News with his thoughts, saying that a negotiated settlement is “not going to make anybody super happy. Both the Russians and the Ukrainians, probably, at the end of the day, are going to be unhappy with it.” [Nandita Bose, Reuters, August 10, 2025.]

Well, now . . . there’s something to look forward to!

Friday is still a long way off, in terms of how quickly — and how often — the political atmosphere can change. Vance may be right; but as of this moment (just after midnight on Monday), my money says, sadly, that Kyiv will be a whole lot unhappier than Moscow when the dust finally settles.

Just sayin’ . . .

Brendochka
8/11/25