NEWS ANALYSIS
After Almost Losing Trump, Putin Gets His Ideal Summit

For President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, it is an opportunity not just to end the Ukraine war on his terms but to split apart the Western security alliance.

By Paul Sonne
Reporting from Berlin
Aug. 10, 2025, 12:01 a.m. ET

Late last month, President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia was facing a stark reality: He was on the verge of losing President Trump, the one Western leader possibly willing to help him get his way in Ukraine and achieve his long-held goal of rupturing the European security order.

After months of trying to get Mr. Putin to end the war, Mr. Trump had grown tired of ineffectual phone calls and talks, and had begun issuing ultimatums. Even worse for Mr. Putin, Mr. Trump appeared to have patched up his relationship with President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, despite an Oval Office blowup earlier this year that delighted Moscow.

It was not clear that Mr. Trump would be able or willing to follow through on the threats he had made to put punishing tariffs on nations buying Russian oil, or what real impact such moves would have on Moscow. But Mr. Trump’s deadline for Mr. Putin to end the war was swiftly approaching, presaging some sort of further rift between the White House and the Kremlin.


Ukrainian firefighters and rescue workers lower the covered body of a person killed in a Russian strike on an apartment building in the Donetsk region of Ukraine, in June. David Guttenfelder/The New York Times

So Mr. Putin shifted tack ever so slightly. … Despite previous refusals by Russian officials to negotiate over territory in the Russia-Ukraine war, the Russian leader, during a meeting at the Kremlin last week, left Mr. Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff, with the impression that Russia was now willing to engage in some deal-making on the question of land.

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Stefan Meister, a Russia analyst at the German Council on Foreign Relations, said the two leaders would come into the summit with different goals — Mr. Trump’s being to end the war and Mr. Putin’s being a strategic repositioning of Russia. … “For Putin it’s really about bigger goals,” Mr. Meister added. “It is about his legacy. It is about where Russia will stand after this war. It is much more fundamental. This creates a different willingness to pay costs.” … And despite negotiations about his country’s land, Mr. Zelensky will not be in the room. … “For Ukraine, it is a disaster,” Mr. Meister said.

Paul Sonne is an international correspondent, focusing on Russia and the varied impacts of President Vladimir V. Putin’s domestic and foreign policies, with a focus on the war against Ukraine.