Putin Proposes a Trump–Xi Summit to Decide Ukraine's Fate

Vladimir Putin wants to settle the Ukraine war the old-fashioned way: three great powers in a room, deciding the fate of a country that isn't invited.

 

The proposal

According to an exclusive published by the Wall Street Journal on Sunday, Putin has proposed a summit next month with Donald Trump and Xi Jinping to negotiate an end to the Ukraine conflict — on terms that would favour Moscow. The Journal cited people familiar with the matter.

The idea was floated during Putin's October 9 phone call with Trump, the same call that produced a separate deal for the United States to buy Russian diesel and help sell it globally. Days later, on October 16, Trump signed an order waiving key sanctions on Moscow. Taken together, the sequence looks less like diplomacy and more like deal-making: sanctions relief and energy trade first, a settlement imposed on Kyiv second.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov confirmed the discussions to the Journal, though he kept expectations low: "There is no clear understanding yet regarding the meeting itself or its potential agenda, although all three parties acknowledge the hypothetical possibility of such a meeting taking place." The Kremlin has reportedly suggested holding the talks on the sidelines of the APEC summit in Shenzhen next month. A senior US official told the Journal that Trump had not agreed to the summit — but could be receptive, given his campaign promise to end the war, a pledge he made for "day one" and is still chasing well into his second year back in office.

Why a summit without Kyiv alarms Europe

A summit of this shape — three leaders deciding Ukraine's fate with no Ukrainian at the table — would be unprecedented in the modern era. European capitals reacted with alarm, and Kyiv with fury. Ukraine's foreign minister rejected the idea outright, saying a summit without Ukraine would only "encourage Putin to continue his war." President Zelenskyy warned that Trump's recent moves toward Moscow would embolden Putin and prolong the fighting rather than end it.

The fear is straightforward: that a Trump–Xi–Putin bargain trades Ukrainian territory and security guarantees for a broader US–Russia economic reset — the diesel deal being exhibit A — while Xi's presence lends the arrangement the legitimacy of a "global" consensus. It is great-power bargaining over the heads of the countries inside the deal, and Europe has seen this film before.

The war, meanwhile, keeps escalating

The summit talk is happening against a backdrop of intensifying strikes. Reuters reports the White House is simultaneously pressing Kyiv to halt its attacks on Russian oil refineries — attacks that have been remarkably effective. Al Jazeera reported that Ukraine launched more than 1,000 drones at Russia in a recent wave, setting oil facilities ablaze. The New York Times reported that Trump is defending his plans to ease Russia sanctions and has even hinted at a hostage deal with Moscow.

And the war keeps spilling across borders: on October 18, Romanian F-16 jets shot down two drones over Romanian territorial waters — a NATO member's airspace violated by the expanding drone war. For the parallel front in this conflict, see our earlier report on the fragile energy ceasefire between Ukraine and Russia, and our analysis of Ukraine's dwindling Patriot interceptor stockpiles.

What to watch

Three things will decide whether this summit idea lives or dies. First, whether Trump actually says yes — his appetite for a legacy-defining deal is real, but so is the domestic political cost of cutting Ukraine out. Second, whether Xi wants the role: Beijing has positioned itself as a neutral party, and joining a carve-up would end that pretence. Third, whether Europe and Kyiv can make exclusion politically toxic before November.

For now, the proposal exists in the space Peskov described: a "hypothetical possibility" that all three sides acknowledge. In diplomacy, that is often where the real negotiations begin — and where the countries not in the room have the most to lose.

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