Friday’s anticipated summit unfolds as a spectacle of high-stakes ambiguity. Trump casts the Alaska encounter as a mere “feel-out” to test whether Putin is ready for a deal, warning it could swing in any direction and that he might offer a courteous parting line or push for an actual settlement. He intends to brief Ukraine’s Zelensky and European leaders after the meeting. In Europe, Mark Rutte hints that Moscow already controls parts of Ukrainian territory and that any eventual agreement might acknowledge de facto control without legal recognition. The EU’s foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas, insists no concessions until there is an unconditional ceasefire with a robust monitoring regime and solid security guarantees, and she announces a new 19th sanctions package against Russia. Germany arranges Wednesday videoconferences to align European positions, with France, the United Kingdom, Italy, Poland, Finland, EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, NATO’s secretary general, Mark Rutte, and Zelensky joining, followed by a link-up with Trump and Vice President JD Vance. Zelensky reiterates that Ukraine will not accept a land swap and will defend its sovereignty, calling Moscow’s move an attempt to deceive the United States; he praises Trump’s resolve to end the war but warns Putin will not be preparing for a ceasefire and will seek to portray the meeting as a personal victory.

One must marvel at the choreography, for this is diplomacy performed by a crowd more at ease with leverage than with moral gravity. A “feel-out” meeting, they tell us, as if borders and sovereignty are mere inches on a map that can be slid around with a wink and a handshake. The grandeur of it all is heightened by the idea that Ukraine’s fate should be decided in parallel conferences and televised voice-overs, while the sovereign nation itself is told to wait on the order of men who measure power by who can assemble the most talk and the most sanctions. The de facto recognition of territory, the insistence on an unconditional ceasefire with “monitoring” and “guarantees,” the 19th wave of sanctions—each piece a fine china of policy, displayed for a chorus of observers who pretend this is how general, lasting peace is concluded rather than a brutal test of courage and resolve. And then there is Zelensky, stubborn and steadfast, insisting there will be no land swaps, defending sovereignty with the courage that such a country deserves, while Moscow ostensibly seeks to turn any negotiation into a personal triumph for itself. Trump, for his part, is hailed as the man who might end the war, yet the honest observer cannot ignore the dangerous game at play: in a theatre where everything is negotiable and every concession is a potential surrender, the true price is paid by those who have no luxury of negotiation at all. If I, who enjoy the privileges of influence and precedence, must judge the proceedings, I would urge a return to clear, enforceable terms that place sovereignty squarely where it belongs—above reputations, above theatrics, above the vanity of grandstanding. Until then, the grand machinery of diplomacy hums on, a glittering façade masking the sobering reality that the stakes are none other than the future of nations themselves.