PUBLISHED on August 7, 2025, 11:58 AM EST – Key Points and Summary – The upcoming summit between President Trump and Vladimir Putin will likely produce “probably nothing” in terms of a real peace deal for Ukraine.
-Putin has no interest in ending the war, as he believes it is essential for his political survival and needs to justify the massive casualties to the Russian people.
-His ultimate goal remains Ukraine’s complete capitulation.
-While Trump’s recent pro-Ukrainian rhetoric has boxed him in from completely abandoning Kyiv, his position is fundamentally irreconcilable with Putin’s war aims, setting the stage for a likely stalemate rather than a breakthrough.
The Putin-Trump Summit: Just a Photo-op?
What should we expect from Donald Trump’s forthcoming meeting with Vladimir Putin?
Probably nothing: no peace, no ceasefire, and certainly no end to Putin’s genocidal war. Instead, hearty handshakes, a few photo ops, and the promise of further meetings.
Which, considering what looked like the only possible alternative a few months ago—throwing Ukraine under the bus—may not be all that bad.
The problem, as always, is Russia’s fascist dictator. He has absolutely no interest in ending the war. And with good reason. He appears to believe—pace the mounds of evidence to the contrary—that Russia is winning.
What Putin Fears Most
He fears unleashing tens of thousands of angry and armed war veterans on a society already plagued by high crime rates.
He knows that Russia’s militarized economy will be useless in times of peace.
He knows that anything short of Russia’s complete acquisition of all four still not fully occupied provinces it formally annexed in late 2022 (Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson) will be viewed as a defeat that could end his career and life.
And he knows that Russians will want to know what, besides amputated limbs, inflation, and declining living standards, they got in return for a million-plus casualties.
Simply put, continuing the war is Putin’s only way of atoning for starting and conducting a stupid aggression that’s brought Russia and Russians nothing but death and destruction.
As he and his minions have explicitly and repeatedly stated, peace means Ukraine’s capitulation, its people’s annihilation, and its rump state’s transformation into a Russian colony.
What Can Trump Do?
Several months ago, Trump might have agreed to Ukraine’s disappearance from the face of the earth. Although we don’t know whether his recent pro-Ukrainian, pro-Zelensky, and anti-Russian statements reflect a genuine change of heart or are simply convenient discursive flourishes, Trump’s current rhetoric has effectively boxed him into a corner.
Leaving that corner without some acknowledgement of Ukraine’s legitimate interests would be tantamount to cutting and running—hardly the behavior of a man who intends to transform America and the world and win the Nobel Peace Prize.
It’s hard to see how Putin’s demand that Ukraine be exterminated can be reconciled with Trump’s verbalized support (whether sincere or insincere) of Ukraine’s existence.
NATO and Ukraine’s potential membership are not, and never were, the problem for Putin, who knows full well that the Alliance is in no position to include Ukraine, that Article 5 of the NATO Charter does not obligate any state to respond militarily to a Russian attack, and that Trump’s commitment to NATO is conditional.
The problem for Putin is, was, and will be Ukraine—not the threat it poses to Russia’s security (how can a country of 20-30 million threaten a nuclear state of 140 million?), but the danger that Ukraine’s existence poses to Russian identity, a point Putin et al have openly acknowledged on numerous occasions.
The problem for Trump is Trump. Has the US President finally understood that Putin is an irreconcilable threat to the world, who can be coerced but not cajoled?
Trump has all the cards. It would be a significant geopolitical error not to utilize them.
About the Author: Dr. Alexander Motyl, Rutgers University
Dr. Alexander Motyl is a professor of political science at Rutgers-Newark. A specialist on Ukraine, Russia, and the USSR, and on nationalism, revolutions, empires, and theory, he is the author of 10 books of nonfiction, including Pidsumky imperii (2009); Puti imperii (2004); Imperial Ends: The Decay, Collapse, and Revival of Empires (2001); Revolutions, Nations, Empires: Conceptual Limits and Theoretical Possibilities (1999); Dilemmas of Independence: Ukraine after Totalitarianism (1993); and The Turn to the Right: The Ideological Origins and Development of Ukrainian Nationalism, 1919–1929 (1980); the editor of 15 volumes, including The Encyclopedia of Nationalism (2000) and The Holodomor Reader (2012); and a contributor of dozens of articles to academic and policy journals, newspaper op-ed pages, and magazines. He also has a weekly blog, “Ukraine’s Orange Blues.”
Hypersonic Weapons In-Depth
Russia’s Hypersonic Missiles Summed Up in 4 Words
Zhduny
August 7, 2025 at 12:56 pm
Trump has zero cards to play against pootin.
What trump has is just pure undiluted bluster, or big empty threats which are duly accompanied or amplified by the noxious western media.
It is pootin who has the cards, but possessing balls of wet dough, he has completely failed to utilize them.
To face down a man like trump who’s actually a low-life con artist, ya need balls of cast iron.
Sadly, pootin doesn’t have balls of such material, and therefore he must be bumped off. ASAP.
Horsemen
August 8, 2025 at 7:01 am
Putin has a type of ski slope shaped nose, very similar to that of richard nixon, not a good sign. Not good at all.
What’s that.
It indicates a man’s career in the twilight years will likely experience significant failure or major disappoint.
Why.
Mainly due to a lack of moral courage or gumption. Or an absence or a deficiency in mental willpower. Be aware.
intp1
August 8, 2025 at 7:14 am
* “Putin has no interest in ending the war, as he believes it is essential for his political survival. His ultimate goal remains Ukraine’s complete capitulation” 🟢 Russia’s Goals stated consistently since before the SMO. NATO to stay away with their 1st strike missiles, Stop trying to eradicate the Russian Diaspora. Get rid of the Banderist Ultras, Russia keeps what they spent blood and treasure for.
* “Russia formally annexed Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson in late 2022” Yes, After referenda by the populace who supported separation by large majority.
* “Putin is Russia’s fascist dictator” 🟢 Meanwhile Zelensky is surrounded by Banderist Fascist thugs, given Billions by Biden and he is not constitutionally compliant Ukraine President AND he will not hold elections.
* “Russia is a society already plagued by high crime rates”
🟢 Overall Crime Rate Comparison (per 100,000 population):
Russia 1,300 (2023, Statista. )United Kingdom 7,468 (2023, ONS)
USA 4,920 (2022, FBI)
I have been to Newark NJ 😣 Crime in Newark for 2021, with homicides rising by 6% (57 homicides compared to 2020) and non-fatal shootings increasing by 13% (221 incidents).
Professor, Don’t let facts get in the way of your political bias and well paid propagandist role. Whatever happens in reality.
David N. Tate
August 8, 2025 at 11:24 am
This is another example of justification of a deeply flawed and failed US foriegn policy. The United States is a co-belligerent in the conflict. The United States provides funding, arms, supplies, and training. The US provides Reconnaisance, Rurveillance, and Target Aquisition (RSTA) data using it’s intelligence assets. Vladimir Putin and the Russians understand this and understand the US, EU, are waging a proxy war through the Ukraine.
I suspect that Putin certainly wants to end this conflict and return to a peacetime economy. Putin clearly wants an end to ongoing US and EU economic warfare that includes economic sanctions, embargoes, and tariffs.
There is very little liklihood of Trump resolving this crisis unless he steps away from the Ukraien first. This would include an immediate halt to all funds, arms, supplies, and training in addition to a halt on intelligence sharing to include satellite and targeting data. This would place the United States into the position of an honest broker and a peace maker. Additionally, if the United States were to halt this support the Ukraine would be forced to stop the conflict within two weeks. An end to the conflict would come naturally if Trump were to order an immediate halt to all support.
Now, if the US, EU, and the Ukraine want to continue the conflict while negotiating a diplomatic solution at least one third party nation state would have to be present to act as an honest broker. This could include Communist China, India, Saudi Arabia, Brazil, or some other nation state.
This conflict is not likely to end as long as the United States is a co-belligerent with the EU and the Ukraine.
Swamplaw Yankee
August 8, 2025 at 7:26 pm
This op-ed is welcome here as it is by a rare Ukrainian-American well known writer. Motyl has decades of op-ed observations published, most of which deserve the peer readers re-read, as the Putin ethnic ruskie “long game” has not much changed. Motyl’s decade old op-ed is a useful educational tool for the new post 2022 reader.
The reader can see the immediate shill response for the pro-genocide of Ukrainians. Some shills even get Yankee style, with tid bits of Yankee data to make the Fascist “butcher” Dictator of the etnic ruskies on the surface “look” ok.
Motyl has a soft spot. Being inside the USA, Motyl must be very “polite” to the Yankee psychology all about him. And, Motyl, is, very soft on the psychology + sociological concepts that elucidate the deadly weaknesses in the USA POTUS regimes.
The US culture industry markets and manipulates vague recollections of Putin’s Dictatorship that are selectively and synthetically attached to current Yankee responses to the latest orc ruskie genocide event.
Motyl just has little print lineage to the culture industry’s manipulation of cognitive categories, much described by many critical theorists. Motyl makes a tiny cut with a point of fact, nearly unrecalled by any reasder, as the vast op-ed writers depict their own “Potemkin Village” panels of fantasy that purports to be connected to the real Ukraine.
Motyl can not even reference his own 2014 articles that vividly depicted the damage that the 2014 POTUS Obama Democrat Cabal inflected on Ukraine. -30-