While President Trump's efforts to find peace in Ukraine are appreciated, that deal cannot be made without Ukraine's participation and it must respect the tenets of international law, including that international borders cannot be redrawn by force.
There's no way around it. Russia and Ukraine are going to have engage in land swaps to pull this peace deal off. Some of the ramifications will be both good and bad for both Russia and Ukraine. However, we'll have to find a deal that's most acceptable to both sides, including returning some land back to Ukraine. The country has lost some prime real estate during the fighting.
Military and intelligence reports indicate that rather than preparing for a ceasefire, Putin is in fact preparing to launch new offensive operations into Ukrainian territory and continue the bloodshed. Putin aims to get a diplomatic score by securing a meeting with Trump but will then continue as before with the fighting. He is not to be trusted.
With a meeting between Putin and Trump now confirmed, Russia's position will remain unchanged from what it has always been: that for Russia's security, Ukraine must be a neutral, non-aligned and nuclear-weapon-free country and must not deploy foreign weapons on its territory. Ukraine also needs to guarantee the rights of Russian speakers in the country while accepting Russia's sovereignty of Crimea, Donbas and Novorossiya.
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