Ukraine, sidelined in Trump-Putin summit

Small bands of Russian soldiers thrust deeper into eastern Ukraine on Tuesday before a summit between Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President Donald Trump, which European leaders fear could end in peace terms imposed on an unlawfully shrunken Ukraine.

In one of the most extensive incursions so far this year, Russian troops advanced near the coal-mining town of Dobropillia, part of Putin’s campaign to take full control of Ukraine’s Donetsk region.

Ukraine’s military dispatched reserve troops, saying they were in difficult combat against Russian soldiers.

Trump has said any peace deal would involve “some swapping of territories to the betterment of both” Russia and Ukraine, which has depended on the U.S. as its main arms supplier.

But because all the areas being contested lie within Ukraine, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and his European Union allies fear that he will face pressure to give up far more than Russia does.

In the first U.S.-Russia summit since 2021, Putin and Trump will meet on Friday at Elmendorf Air Force Base in Anchorage, Alaska, two White House officials said.

Trump’s administration on Tuesday tempered expectations for major progress toward a ceasefire, calling the summit a “listening exercise.”

Along that line, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the president wanted to size up Putin directly.

“The president feels like, look, I’ve got to look at this guy across the table. I need to see him face to face. I need to hear him one on one. I need to make an assessment by looking at him,” Rubio told WABC radio in New York on Tuesday.

Zelenskiy and most of his European counterparts have said a lasting peace cannot be secured without Ukraine at the negotiating table, and a deal must comply with international law, Ukraine’s sovereignty and its territorial integrity.

Read more: Zelensky warns on ‘decisions without Ukraine’ before US-Russia summit

They will hold a virtual meeting with Trump on Wednesday to underscore those concerns before the Putin summit.

“Substantive and productive talks about us without us will not work,” Zelenskiy said in an interview on Tuesday with NewsNation. “Just as I cannot say anything about another state or make decisions for it.”

Zelenskiy has said Russia must agree to a ceasefire before territorial issues are discussed. He would reject any Russian proposal that Ukraine pull its troops from the eastern Donbas region and cede its defensive lines.

Asked why Zelenskiy was not joining the U.S. and Russian leaders at the Alaska summit, White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt told reporters the bilateral meeting had been proposed by Putin, and Trump accepted to get a “better understanding” of “how we can hopefully bring this war to an end.”

Trump is open to a trilateral meeting with Putin and Zelenskiy later, Leavitt said.