On Friday, President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin will meet in Anchorage, Alaska, for their first face-to-face talks since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

United States officials caution that this summit is primarily a “listening exercise.” But reports suggest Trump may entertain “territorial swaps” to end the Ukraine conflict. This would be a catastrophic miscalculation. Handing Putin control over Ukrainian territory without security guarantees for Kyiv will not end this war. It will merely pause it. Trump says territorial swaps won’t be on the agenda, but with Trump and Putin, you never know.