President Trump has spent the week setting the bar extremely low for his high-stakes U.S.-Russian summit on Friday in Alaska. Hardly anyone expects him to make much progress in halting the fighting between Russia and Ukraine, given how far apart their views of the conflict are.

过去一周，特朗普总统给周五在阿拉斯加的美俄重要峰会定下了极低的标准。鉴于俄罗斯和乌克兰对这场冲突的看法存在巨大分歧，几乎没人指望他能在阻止两国战事方面取得多大进展。

But those two warring countries do seem to agree on at least one thing. Merely meeting with Mr. Trump is a big win for President Vladimir V. Putin, bringing the Russian leader out of a diplomatic deep freeze and giving him a chance to cajole the American president face to face.

但两个交战国似乎至少在一件事上达成了共识：仅仅与特朗普会面，对普京总统而言就是一场重大胜利，这能让这位俄罗斯领导人走出外交孤立的困境，并有机会当面劝说美国总统。

“Putin’s visit to the U.S.A. means the total collapse of the whole concept of isolating Russia. Total collapse,” Kremlin-controlled television crowed after news of the hastily arranged summit broke last weekend.

“普京访问美国意味着孤立俄罗斯这一整套理念彻底崩溃。彻底崩溃。”上周末，这场仓促安排的峰会消息公布后，克里姆林宫控制的电视台得意地宣称。

For Russia, “this is a breakthrough even if they don’t agree on much,” said Sergei Mikheyev, a pro-war Russian political scientist who is a mainstay of state television.

“对俄罗斯来说，即便达成的共识不多，也是一次突破，”主战派俄罗斯政治学家、国家电视台的常客谢尔盖·米哈伊耶夫表示。

President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, iced out of the Alaska talks about his own country’s future, has come to the same conclusion, telling reporters on Tuesday: “Putin will win in this. Because he is seeking, excuse me, photos. He needs a photo from the meeting with President Trump.”

被排除在这场关乎本国未来的阿拉斯加会谈之外的乌克兰总统泽连斯基也得出了同样的结论，他周二告诉记者：“普京会是赢家。因为他想要的——不好意思——想要的是照片。他需要一张与特朗普总统会面的照片。”

But it is more than a photo op. In addition to thawing Russia’s pariah status in the West, the summit has sowed discord within NATO — a perennial Russian goal — and postponed Mr. Trump’s threat of tough new sanctions. Little more than two weeks ago, he vowed that if Mr. Putin did not commit to a cease-fire by last Friday, he would punish Moscow and countries like China and India that help Russia’s war effort by buying its oil and gas.

但这不仅仅是一场拍照作秀。除了缓和俄罗斯在西方被排斥的处境，此次峰会还在北约内部制造了分歧——这是俄罗斯长期以来的目标——并且推迟了特朗普威胁实施的新一轮严厉制裁。就在两周多前，他还信誓旦旦，如果普京在上周五前不承诺停火，他将惩罚莫斯科以及像中国、印度这样通过购买俄罗斯石油和天然气来为其战争努力提供帮助的国家。

特朗普决定与普京就乌克兰问题举行会晤，并将乌克兰总统泽连斯基排除在外，令欧洲领导人感到震惊。

The deadline passed with no pause in the war — the fighting has in fact intensified as Russia pushes forward with a summer offensive — and no new economic penalties on Russia.

最后期限过去了，战争并未暂停——事实上，随着俄罗斯推进夏季攻势，战斗反而愈演愈烈——俄罗斯也没有受到新的经济惩罚。

“Instead of getting hit with sanctions, Putin got a summit,” said Ryhor Nizhnikau, a Russia expert and senior researcher at the Finnish Institute of International Affairs. “This is a tremendous victory for Putin no matter what the result of the summit.”

“普京非但没有受到制裁，反而得到了一次峰会，”芬兰国际关系研究所的俄罗斯问题专家、高级研究员雷霍尔·尼日尼考说，“无论峰会结果如何，这对普京来说都是一场巨大的胜利。”

Before Alaska, only two Western leaders — the prime ministers of tiny Slovakia and Hungary — had met with Mr. Putin since he ordered the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 and was placed under an international arrest warrant for war crimes in March 2023.

在阿拉斯加峰会之前，自2022年2月普京下令全面入侵乌克兰，以及2023年3月因战争罪被国际逮捕令通缉以来，只有两位西方领导人——小国斯洛伐克和匈牙利的总理——会见过普京。

Many in Europe have been flabbergasted by Mr. Trump’s decision to hold a summit on Ukraine that excluded Mr. Zelensky, and the continent’s leaders have pressed the president not to strike a deal behind Ukraine’s back.

欧洲许多人对特朗普决定举行一场将泽连斯基排除在外的乌克兰问题峰会感到震惊，欧洲各国领导人纷纷向特朗普施压，要求他不要背着乌克兰达成协议。

Mr. Trump tried to allay those fears in a video call with European leaders, including Mr. Zelensky, on Wednesday. The Europeans said they had hammered out a strategy with President Trump for his meeting with Mr. Putin, including an insistence that any peace plan must start with a cease-fire and not be negotiated without Ukraine at the table.

周三，特朗普在与包括泽连斯基在内的欧洲领导人的视频通话中试图缓解这些担忧。欧洲表示，他们已与特朗普总统就其与普京的会面制定了一项策略，包括坚持任何和平计划都必须从停火开始，而且不能在没有乌克兰参与的情况下进行谈判。

A peace deal on Ukraine is not Mr. Putin’s real goal for the summit, said Tatiana Stanovaya, senior fellow at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center. “His objective is to secure Trump’s support in pushing through the Russian proposals.”

卡内基俄罗斯欧亚中心高级研究员塔蒂亚娜·斯塔诺瓦娅表示，就乌克兰问题达成和平协议并非普京此次峰会的真正目标。“他的目的是争取特朗普支持，推动俄罗斯的提议。”

7月，乌克兰哈尔科夫，俄罗斯轰炸现场的乌克兰消防员和救援人员。

For Mr. Putin, she said, the meeting is a “tactical maneuver to turn the situation in his favor” and calm what had been increasing White House anger over the Kremlin’s stalling on a cease-fire.

她说，对普京而言，这次会面是一次“战术策略，旨在扭转局势，使其对自己有利”，并且平息白宫因克里姆林宫在停火问题上拖延而日益增长的愤怒。

On the eve of the summit on Thursday, the Kremlin signaled that it planned to inject other issues beyond Ukraine into the talks, including a potential restoration of economic ties with the United States and discussions on a new nuclear weapons deal. The arms idea plays into Russia’s longstanding efforts to frame the war in Ukraine as just part of bigger East-West conflict.

周四峰会前夕，克里姆林宫暗示，计划在会谈中加入乌克兰之外的其他议题，包括可能恢复与美国的经济联系，以及讨论新的核武器协议。俄罗斯长期以来一直试图将乌克兰战争描述为东西方冲突的一部分，军备问题与这一努力是契合的。

Mr. Trump has called his rendezvous with Mr. Putin just a “feel-out meeting” from which he will quickly walk away if a peace deal looks unlikely.

特朗普称他与普京此次只是“试探性会面”，如果和平协议看起来无望达成，他会迅速退出。

Neither the White House nor the Kremlin has publicly stated what kind of peace deal they are looking for. But Mr. Trump has said it could involve “some land-swapping,” something he feels he is well equipped to negotiate as a onetime New York property developer.

白宫和克里姆林宫都未公开说明他们期望达成何种和平协议。但特朗普表示，协议可能涉及“一些土地交换”，作为前纽约房地产开发商，他觉得自己很有能力协商此事。

Mr. Zelensky has rejected any land swap, insisting he has no authority under the Ukrainian Constitution to bargain away parts of the country. Agreeing to do so would be likely to trigger a serious political crisis in Kyiv and advance one of Mr. Putin’s longstanding objectives: toppling Mr. Zelensky.

泽连斯基拒绝任何形式的土地交换，坚称根据乌克兰宪法，他无权出卖国家的部分领土。如果他同意这样做，很可能会在基辅引发严重的政治危机，并推进普京的长期目标之一：推翻泽连斯基。

今年2月，特朗普在白宫斥责泽连斯基发动防御战，并对美国的援助没有表现出应有的感激之情。

Ukraine’s surrender of its eastern regions would also torpedo Mr. Trump’s hopes that the United States will one day benefit from Ukraine’s reserves of rare earth minerals, most of which are in territory that Russia claims as its own.

乌克兰放弃东部地区也会让特朗普期望美国未来从乌克兰稀土矿产储备中获益的想法化为泡影，这些矿产大多位于俄罗斯声称属于自己的领土上。

“The worst-case scenario for Ukraine and more broadly is that Putin makes some sort of offer that is acceptable to the United States but that Zelensky cannot swallow domestically,” said Samuel Charap, a political scientist and the co-author of a book about Ukraine and post-Soviet Eurasia.

“对乌克兰乃至更广泛的范围来说，最糟糕的情况是，普京提出某种美国可以接受，但泽连斯基在国内无法接受的提议，”政治学家塞缪尔·查拉普说，他曾与人合著一本关于乌克兰和后苏联欧亚地区的书。

Mr. Putin, a veteran master of manipulation, will no doubt work hard in Alaska to cast Mr. Zelensky as an intransigent obstacle to peace.

普京是操纵方面的老手，毫无疑问，他会在阿拉斯加峰会上竭力将泽连斯基描绘成阻碍和平的顽固分子。

“Trump thinks he can look into Putin’s eyes and get a deal. He believes in his own talents as a negotiator,” Mr. Nizhnikau, the Finnish expert on Russia, said. “The problem is that Putin has been doing this his whole life and is going into this summit with the idea that he can manipulate Trump.”

“特朗普认为他可以直视普京的眼睛达成协议。他相信自己作为谈判者的才能，”芬兰俄罗斯问题专家尼日尼考说，“问题在于，普京一辈子都在做这种事，而且他参加这次峰会时就抱着可以操纵特朗普的想法。”

Mr. Trump’s last summit meeting with his Russian counterpart, held in 2018 in Helsinki, Finland, during his first term, showcased his propensity to accept Mr. Putin’s version of reality. He said then that he saw no reason to doubt the Russian president’s denials of meddling in the 2016 presidential election.

2018年，特朗普在其第一任期内与俄罗斯总统在芬兰赫尔辛基举行了上一次峰会，那时就展现出他倾向于接受普京对现实的说法。当时他表示，没有理由怀疑这位俄罗斯总统对干预2016年美国总统选举的否认。

Mr. Trump suggested this year that Ukraine was responsible for the invasion of its own territory and refused to join America’s traditional Western allies in voting for a United Nations resolution condemning Russia’s aggression. On Sunday evening, Mr. Zelensky worried aloud that Mr. Trump could be easily “deceived.”

特朗普今年曾表示，乌克兰要为自己领土遭到入侵负责，并且拒绝与美国的传统西方盟友一起投票支持联合国谴责俄罗斯侵略的决议。周日晚上，泽连斯基直言他担心特朗普很容易被“欺骗”。

Mr. Trump responded testily on Monday to Mr. Zelensky’s insistence that he could not surrender territory. “He’s got approval to go into war and kill everybody, but he needs approval to do a land swap?” Mr. Trump snapped. “There’ll be some land swapping going on.”

对于泽连斯基坚称不能放弃领土的态度，特朗普周一做出了不耐烦的回应。“他得到批准去打仗，去杀那么多人。但进行土地交换却需要批准？”特朗普忿忿地说道，“肯定会有一些土地交换的。”

周四，在阿拉斯加州安克雷奇，特朗普和普京将在埃尔门多夫-理查森联合基地举行会晤。

Still, said Mr. Charap, the political scientist, “Putin can’t really count his chickens yet.” Despite his iron grip on Russia’s political system and its major media outlets, he has his own domestic concerns, particularly on the issue of land, if the sort of swap floated by Mr. Trump advances. “Territory is a third rail politically, especially for Ukraine but also for Russia.”

不过，政治学家查拉普表示：“普京现在还不能高兴得太早。”尽管他牢牢掌控着俄罗斯的政治体系及其主要媒体机构，但如果特朗普提出的那种土地交换得以推进，他自己也有国内方面的顾虑，尤其是在领土问题上。“领土问题在政治上是碰不得的禁区，对乌克兰来说如此，对俄罗斯而言也是这样。”