Moscow seeks to push Trump to abandon talks with Ukraine and EU – ISW

Russia's leadership is trying to push U.S. President Donald Trump to abandon the negotiation process with Ukraine and Europe and make concessions to Moscow's demands put forward at the August 2025 summit in Anchorage, Alaska.

The Institute for the Study of War (ISW) said this in a new report seen by Ukrinform.

"The Kremlin is trying to push Trump to abandon the negotiation process with Ukraine and Europe that he has been leading and to concede to the demands Russia made at the August 2025 US-Russia summit in Alaska," the report said.

Putin's aide Yury Ushakov stated after Putin's January 22-23 meeting with the U.S. delegation that "there is no hope" of achieving a long-term settlement to the war without resolving the territorial issue according to the "formula" the United States and Russia allegedly agreed to in Alaska.

A source close to the Kremlin told Reuters that the Kremlin considers the "Anchorage formula" to include Ukraine ceding all of Donbas to Russia and freezing the current frontlines elsewhere in southern and eastern Ukraine.

At the same time, ISW notes that Trump has led conversations with Ukraine and Europe in recent weeks that have made significant progress in determining the conditions necessary to ensure an enduring and reliable peace in Ukraine. Trump also worked with Ukraine and Europe to alter the initial U.S.-proposed 28-point peace plan into the latest iteration of the 20-point plan, signaling the administration's commitment to working with Ukraine and Europe to secure a just end to the war.

ISW continues to assess that the Kremlin has been trying to manipulate the lack of publicly available agreements resulting from the Alaska Summit, presenting the alleged U.S.-Russian agreements in ways that benefit Russia. The Kremlin has been using the ambiguity around the summit to try to conceal the way Russia – not Ukraine – has been impeding the negotiations process by maintaining its original war demands.

"Russia is likely attempting to convince Trump to walk away from U.S. efforts to work with Ukraine and Europe by offering the ambiguous 'Alaska formula' as a way to end the war," the report states.

On January 23, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky discussed with Ukraine's negotiating team the agenda and the desired outcome of the trilateral meeting in the United Arab Emirates. The president noted that the Ukrainian team had taken into account that negotiation formats could vary.

The head of state also approved the composition of the Ukrainian delegation, which was led by National Security and Defense Council Secretary Rustem Umerov.