US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin will meet in Anchorage, Alaska on US soil on August 15 in what could be critical talks that could bring an end to the war in Ukraine a step closer.

But the talks are already mired in controversy. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy will not be invited to the meeting and Bankova (Ukraine’s equivalent of the Kremlin) is very unhappy at the idea of having its fate decided behind closed doors.

Zelenskiy has been adamant that he cannot cede any territory to Russia, despite vague talk of possible “land swaps” that could be part of an agreement decided by Trump and Putin.

Land swaps

Trump said on August 12 that Kyiv and Moscow will both have to cede land to end the war in Ukraine. Trump said this week that he will know “in the first two minutes” if a deal with Putin is possible.

"This is really a feel-out meeting," Trump said at a press conference and he would know "probably in the first two minutes" whether progress was possible. "I'm going to be telling him, 'You've got to end this war,'" he said.

"I'm going to go and see the parameters now. I may leave and say, 'Good luck.' And that'll be the end. I may say, “This is not going to be settled”."

Land swaps are definitely on the agenda, but as bne IntelliNews reported, there is a lot of confusion over what that might entail. At the same time it is not at all clear what territory, apart from a toehold in Kursk, Bankova has to swap with the Kremlin.

Special envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff met with Putin last week, but following the meeting it appears that Witkoff misunderstood exactly what Putin offered. At first, he announced that Putin proposed to withdraw the AFR from two regions – Kherson and Zaporizhzhia – that would break the land bridge connecting the Russian region of Rostov with the Crimea, but more recently Witkoff has admitted that Putin made no such concession.

However, Trump maintains that some sort of land swap deal is still on the cards. Speaking to reporters, Trump said: "There'll be some land swapping going on." He said Russia had occupied some "very prime territory" but "we're going to try to get some of that territory back."

European leaders and Zelenskiy plan to speak with Trump ahead of his summit with Putin in Alaska but have largely been excluded from the talks which the White House indicates will be presented to Bankova as a “take it or leave it” fait accompli. The White House has rebuffed pressure from Europe to consult on strategy or include Zelenskiy in the talks. Trump has promised to debrief European leaders after his meeting with Putin and suggested that there would be a tri-lateral follow up meeting between himself, Putin and Zelenskiy if any progress was made.

The threat standing behind this approach is that the US will simply walk away from the Ukraine conflict if Zelenskiy does not accept Trump’s proposals.

US Vice President JD Vance has said already said on August 11 that Washington has stopped financing Ukraine's war effort and as bne IntelliNews reported, the US has imposed no new sanctions or tariffs on Russia since Trump took office in January in a reversal of the Biden administration's strong support. Europe has also recently overtaken the US as the biggest supplier of materiel to Kyiv, drawn from procurement contracts rather than stockpiles, but Ukraine remains desperately short of weapons, and air defence ammo in particular.

Russian battlefield advances

The AFU is coming under increasing and intense pressure as the Armed Forces of Russia (AFR) makes rapid advances on the battlefield. The key logistics hub of Pokrovsk that supplies most of the eastern front in Donbas has almost been surrounded and AFR soldiers have broken into the city. Zelenskiy admitted that the city has become the main focus of the war and sent reinforcements to bolster the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) defensive positions.

Bankova claims that the accelerated attack is an attempt by the Kremlin to manipulate the media space ahead of the Alaskan summit.

Ukrainian defence lines around and within the city have broken down. Russian forces are already in the city, according to milbloggers following the war.

Supply and exit routes to the north and west are barely passable. The Ukrainian forces lack infantry. Some Ukrainian brigades have less than 100 people to man several miles long defence lines. There is a severe lack of mortar and artillery ammunition. The Russian side has more and better drones available in higher numbers. The recent re-organization of the Ukrainian army into corps sized structures has only increased the organizational chaos, according to milblogger reports.

During the last three days Russian forces achieved a major breakthrough. After the heavy bombardment of Ukrainian positions with over 1,300 powerful FAB glide bombs Russian detachments moved north of the salient they had built between the semi-encircled cities Pokrovsk and Konstantinivka. They have also reached and breached the well built second Donbas fortification line which had been dug over the last year.

Morale deteriorating

The fresh onslaught comes as the number of reports of decaying morale in the AFU mount. Zelenskiy was accused of using increasingly authoritarian methods in a recent piece by the Financial Times, which was followed by a scandal after Bankova introduced Law 21414 on July 22 that guts Ukraine’s anti-corruption reforms that immediately sparked the first anti-government protests since the war began over three years ago.

This week the Wall Street Journal reported on the decaying mood amongst the soldiers of the AFU and the low regard the commander in chief Oleksandr Syrskyi is held in by the fighting men. They accuse him of using Soviet methods and needlessly wasting men in pointless assaults.

An increasing number of Ukrainian officers have been speaking out against the poor quality of AFU leadership and saying the army is increasingly run on Soviet lines.

“Mr. President, I honestly don't know what exactly is being reported to you, but I inform you: the line Pokrovsk - Kostyantynivka, without exaggeration, is a complete c*nt. And this c*nt has been growing for a long time, getting worse every day,” Lieutenant Colonel , Chief of Staff of the Defence of Mariupol, Bohdan Krotevych, wrote in one of the most explicit criticisms posted on social media.

Ukrainian officers and infantrymen complain of a centralized command culture that often punishes initiative and wastes men’s lives, the Wall Street Journal reported in a long damning expose of the deteriorating morale amongst Ukraine's troops.

“Generals order repetitive frontal assaults that have little hope of success, and deny requests from beleaguered units to carry out tactical retreats and save their men. Casualties accumulate on operations with little strategic value,” the Wall Street Journal reported.

Ukraine continues to suffer from a severe manpower shortage as the forced conscription campaign fails to find enough fresh recruits to replace those killed or wounded on the frontline. At the same time the rate of desertion from the AFU has soared undermining the integrity of the AFU’s defensive efforts. For its part, the Kremlin has increased the pressure by launching a devastating missile barrage in May and quadrupled the number of drones and missiles it has been firing at Ukrainian military and urban targets in an effort to destroy Ukraine’s defences and demoralise the population.

Recent polls have found that some 70% of the population are tired of the war and want to see a negotiated settlement, but other polls have also found the majority of Ukrainians are against ceding territory as part of any deal.

Trump wild card

Trump remains a wildcard in the fate of the conflict. The deal to be discussed on August 15 looks very similar to the seven-point “final offer” peace plan Trump presented in London in April, that contained many of the concessions that Putin has been demanding, including a no-Nato guarantee and recognition of Russia’s control over the five occupied territories. That deal was rejected out of hand by Zelenskiy and his European allies, who, then as now, demanded in a counteroffer an unconditional ceasefire before any talks could start.

European Union foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said on August 12 that "transatlantic unity, support to Ukraine and pressure on Russia" were needed to end the war and "prevent future Russian aggression in Europe."

Kallas said that the EU was already working on a nineteenth sanctions package to keep the pressure on Moscow and remains firmly against the Trump-Putin summit.

"As far as Russia has not agreed to a full and unconditional ceasefire, we should not even discuss any concessions," she said in a statement. "The sequencing of the steps is important. First an unconditional ceasefire with a strong monitoring system and ironclad security guarantees."

Trump has flip flopped on Russia over the last seven months, but more recently his position has hardened towards Moscow. He made some of his most pro-Ukraine, anti-Russia comments last month and has agreed to allow additional US weapons to reach Ukraine.

He also threatened 100% tariffs against buyers of Russian oil if a ceasefire deal was not agreed by August 8, but that deadline has slipped passed after the meeting in Alaska was suggested. India was hit with additional 25% tariffs last week, but those will not come into effect for 21 days giving New Delhi ample time to cut a new trade deal. Likewise, China was also threatened with new triple digit tariffs, but Trump this week extended the deadline by 90 days and will not confront Beijing until November.

These machinations have fuelled speculation amongst some analysts that Putin's agreement to meet Trump is little more than a successful ruse to forestall new US tariffs and sanctions on the Kremlin.

Zelenskiy warned on August 12 that any concessions Trump may offer Putin would not persuade Bankova to stop fighting. In particular, ceding the whole of the Donbas to Russia, one possible variant discussed ahead of the summit, would only provide Moscow with a platform from which it could regroup and launch a renewed assault. Kyiv has built very extensive defences around the key fortress cities in Donbas that it still controls and a withdrawal from Donbas by the AFU would put these defences under Russian control.

"Russia refuses to stop the killings, and therefore must not receive any rewards or benefits," Zelenskiy wrote on X. "Concessions do not persuade a killer."