Samuel Charap:
So I think, in the best case, the two leaders could agree to actually start a real peace process that — with a place, concrete people, objectives, a timeline, and, of course, a place for Ukraine and the Europeans at that table, a process that could take a while, because I think we’re not at a position where the war is going to end on Friday or there’s going to be an immediate peace agreement.
That just is not how these things work. These have been countries that have been going at it for over 3.5 years now. And clearly there’s no trust there, and it’s going to take a while to get to a point where they’re actually agreeing to stop the fighting.
So I think, if we get a real process coming out of Anchorage, that would be a huge success. I think the downside risk, as I think you have heard from Europeans, is that there’s some deal that Trump and Putin themselves make that is acceptable to Trump, but not to Zelenskyy, and then,basically, the — Trump is in a position of putting the screws on Zelenskyy to accept whatever it is that he and Putin agree to.
But another negative outcome could be no deal at all. If a summit between the U.S. and Russian presidents occurs and nothing comes out of it, that could be a real setback to both President Trump’s and broader efforts to bring the war to a negotiated end.
