Zelenskyy tries to warn Trump not to trust Putin ahead of Alaska meeting

Over the past few days, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy made tens of phone calls with world leaders after his US counterpart Donald Trump confirmed his meeting with Russian leader Vladimir Putin in Alaska on Friday.

“The end of the war must be fair, and I am grateful to everyone who stands with Ukraine and our people today for the sake of peace in Ukraine, which is defending the vital security interests of our European nations”, Ukrainian leader said as the joint statement was issued with the leaders of France, Italy, Germany, Poland, Finland and the European Commission.

With the carefully chosen diplomatic language, the statement is meant to support Trump’s efforts to put an end to Russia’s all-out war against Ukraine and, at the same time, to pass on a cautious warning to the US president not to trust Putin.

“Meaningful negotiations can only take place in the context of a ceasefire or reduction of hostilities," the leaders said in the joint statement.

"The path to peace in Ukraine cannot be decided without Ukraine. We remain committed to the principle that international borders must not be changed by force”, the statement said as Europe's top politicians emphasised they “continue to stand firmly by the side of Ukraine”.

For Zelenskyy, the message to Trump is clear and firm. “We understand Russia’s intention to try to deceive America – we will not allow this”, he said, adding that he “greatly values the determination with which President Trump is committed to bringing an end to the killings in this war”.

“The sole root cause of these killings is Putin's desire to wage war and manipulate everyone he comes into contact with. We in Ukraine know Russia well”, Zelenskyy concluded.

Does Putin want peace?

Prior to Russia’s first invasion of Ukraine in 2014 and then Moscow’s full-scale war in 2022, Putin repeatedly said he had no intentions of attacking Ukraine.

In February and March 2014, as the Russian soldiers were blocking the main airport and military bases of Ukraine in Crimea, Putin kept repeating that these were not Russian forces.  

Despite looking like Russian soldiers and operating like Moscow’s paratroopers, Putin repeatedly denied that those were Russian troops. He even said that their equipment could easily be bought in a military surplus shop.

The Kremlin never commented on where exactly anyone could buy a Russian uniform together with an automatic weapon and a grenade launcher. Russian soldiers were referred to as “little green men” until it was too late.

Putin denied everything until the very last moment, when he proudly announced the annexation of Crimea, admitting that he had deployed Russian troops to the peninsula weeks before the annexation.

Celebrating the beginning of the invasion of Ukraine in 2014, Putin was denying the presence of the Russian troops in eastern parts of the neighbouring country, as Moscow's soldiers were already attacking and occupying territories in Ukraine’s Donetsk and Luhansk regions.

By the end of 2021 Western intelligence authorities were intensifying their warnings that Russia was preparing to invade Ukraine. As Moscow amassed 200,000 troops at the border, Putin repeatedly said military drills were “purely defensive” and “not a threat to any other country”.

“Russia has no plans to invade Ukraine,” the Kremlin said a few days before 24 February 2022.

'Vladimir, stop!'

During the debate last summer in the run-up to the presidential elections in the US, Trump refused to say whether he wanted Ukraine to win Russia’s war of aggression.

“I want the war to stop”, he stated before the presidential elections and ever since his return to the White House.

Until recently, Trump had repeatedly said Russia seemed more willing than Ukraine to get a deal done, going as far as saying he has known Putin for a long time and “we have always gotten along well”.

At the same time Trump’s rhetoric on Zelenskyy was the opposite. In February the US president called him “a dictator without elections”, partially repeating the Kremlin’s narrative.

At the unprecedented scandal in the White House on 28 February, Trump accused Zelenskyy of not showing gratitude and ultimately not wanting Russia’s war to end. “You’re gambling with World War III”, Trump told Zelenskyy, backing Moscow’s line on Kyiv not agreeing to an end to the war.

Ukraine’s president devoted considerable time and effort to not only repairing diplomatic relations with the Trump administration but also demonstrating that Ukrainians are more eager than anyone else to end Russia’s war, with the obstacle being in Moscow, not Kyiv.

Trump changed his rhetoric towards Putin when, in April, he reacted to Russia’s serial attacks on Kyiv, posting on Truth Social, “Vladimir, stop!”

As Moscow and Kyiv restored the direct talks in Istanbul, Trump was getting more irritated by the absence of any tangible result and Moscow’s unwillingness to agree to a ceasefire as the first step towards a possible peace deal.

In July, as Russia has massively intensified its daily aerial attacks on Ukraine, the US president for the first time admitted that he was not happy with his Russian counterpart.

“We get a lot of bull***t thrown at us by Putin, if you want to know the truth. He’s very nice all the time, but it turns out to be meaningless," Trump said.

“I am very disappointed with President Putin, I thought he was somebody that meant what he said. He’ll talk so beautifully and then he’ll bomb people at night. We don’t like that.”

Trump pushed even harder against Putin later as he imposed the ceasefire deadline for Moscow set for last Friday.

“I don’t want to say he’s an assassin, but he’s a tough guy. It’s been proven over the years.” Trump said about Putin as he threatened to impose secondary tariffs, targeting Russia’s trading partners in an effort to isolate Moscow if the Kremlin didn’t agree to a ceasefire by 8 August.

“He’s fooled a lot of people before,” Trump added, just two weeks before Moscow ignored the deadline and Washington did not introduce the sanctions in response.

Instead the presidents of the US and Russia are now set to meet in Alaska on 15 August.

“(Putin) fooled Clinton, Bush, Obama, Biden, he didn't fool me'', Trump said as Russia’s president did manage to avoid tougher sanctions for Moscow and secondary sanctions on his trading partners, ignored the ceasefire deadline and set up a meeting with the US president on his own terms: without Zelenskyy and the EU representatives, putting an end to overwhelming diplomatic isolation, but not stopping his all-out war on Ukraine.