"If you're not at the table, you're on the menu", so the famous saying in international diplomacy goes.
As Donald Trump prepares to meet Vladimir Putin in Alaska on Friday, there is concern in Kyiv and other European capitals that they could negotiate an end to the war in Ukraine over the head of Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who is not invited to the talks.
European leaders – who will also be absent – have sought to present a united front with Ukraine. They issued a statement saying that "the path to peace in Ukraine cannot be decided without Ukraine", and that "international borders must not be changed by force".
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The "worst-case scenario" for Kyiv and Europe is that Trump and Putin reach an agreement on what the US president calls "land swaps". This would, "in reality, mean Ukraine ceding large swaths of its territory permanently to Russia", said Gideon Rachman in the Financial Times. The deal would then be "presented to Ukraine as a fait accompli".
While Ukraine want "agreement on a ceasefire – with the threat of secondary sanctions on Russia if Putin restarts the war" before any discussion on territory, it has to be realistic about the state of the war as things stand.
Russia now occupies nearly a fifth of the country and this year has slowly but steadily been utilising its superior manpower and supplies to make territorial gains.
Understanding this, Zelenskyy has told European leaders ahead of Friday's summit that while giving up Ukrainian land held by Kyiv remains a red line – and something prohibited by the constitution – Ukrainian territory in Russia's control could be on the table. This represents a "softening" of his negotiating position and "would mean freezing the front line where it is and handing Russia de facto control of the territory it occupies in Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia, Kherson and Crimea", said The Telegraph.
"The critical distinction is between de facto and de jure concessions of territory," said Rachman. A legal recognition is "rightly unacceptable" to Kyiv, but an informal "recognition of Russian occupation of some territory as a brutal reality – in the context of a broader peace deal – may be necessary".
If it can maintain its independence and democratic institutions, then Ukraine "making some de facto territorial concessions might be a painful but acceptable concession".
Whether this outcome is acceptable to Putin is another matter entirely. "While the Kremlin's propaganda machine would be able to spin such relatively modest gains as a glorious victory to Russia's people, Putin would not be able to fool himself," said The Times.
As the president and his allies "have made clear on multiple occasions, Russia is not just fighting for land; it is seeking to eliminate Ukraine as an independent state".
Putin's "unchanging goal is to subjugate Kyiv, however long it takes and by whatever means necessary".
What next?
Trump "remains wedded to the notion that 'land swapping' will shape any deal to end the war in Ukraine", said Sky News.
He has said that Friday's meeting with Putin is to "feel out" what the "parameters" are for a future ceasefire. This is a "strategic preemption perhaps, setting expectations low, and preparing the public for failure".
But, "having played the ultimate card of a presidential summit, the only result that counts will be the full and complete ceasefire that President Trump has long demanded and that Ukraine accepted five months ago", said CNN.
"Short of that, the summit will be a failure with peace further out of reach for the foreseeable future."
