President Vladimir V. Putin has long said he wants to sit down with President Trump.

普京总统一直表示希望与特朗普总统会晤。

The reason: He believes that such a meeting, rather than just progress on the battlefield, is his best chance for securing a victory in his war against Ukraine.

原因在于：他认为这样的会晤——而不仅仅是战场上的进展——是赢得乌克兰战争胜利的最佳机会。

Analysts who study Mr. Putin, as well as people who know him, have said since the early days of the war that the Russian leader’s overarching goal is primarily to secure a peace deal that achieves his geopolitical aims — and not necessarily to conquer a certain amount of territory on the battlefield.

研究普京的分析人士以及了解他的人自战争初期就表示，这位俄罗斯领导人的总体目标主要是达成一项实现其地缘政治目标的和平协议，而未必是在战场上征服一定面积的领土。

And it is the U.S. president, they say, who is best positioned to deliver on those aims — which include keeping Ukraine out of NATO and preventing the alliance’s future expansion. That helps explain why Mr. Putin has appeared so focused on placating Mr. Trump and avoiding a break with Washington, even as the American president has shown growing impatience with his refusal to agree to a cease-fire.

他们说，美国总统是最有能力实现这些目标的人选，其中包括阻止乌克兰加入北约并防止该联盟未来的扩张。这有助于解释为什么普京似乎如此专注于安抚特朗普、避免与华盛顿发生决裂，尽管美国总统对普京拒绝同意停火越来越不耐烦。

“Putin wants to keep Trump as a resource for a possible transition to peace,” said Sergei Markov, a pro-Kremlin political analyst in Moscow. “Trump is needed to achieve Russia’s conditions.”

“普京希望将特朗普作为战略资源保留，为可能实现的和平过渡铺路，”亲克里姆林宫的莫斯科政治分析人士谢尔盖·马尔科夫表示，“俄罗斯提的条件要想实现，离不开特朗普的作用。

That is most likely why Mr. Putin has been saying for months that he wants to have a summit.

这很可能就是普京几个月来一直说想举行峰会的原因。

“It is probably better for us to meet,” Mr. Putin said of Mr. Trump in January, “and, based on today’s realities, talk calmly about all areas that are of interest to both the U.S. and Russia.”

“我们可能最好见一面，”普京在1月份谈到特朗普时说，“根据今天的现实，冷静地讨论美国和俄罗斯都感兴趣的所有领域。”

A day after Mr. Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff, met with Mr. Putin in Moscow, the Kremlin confirmed on Thursday morning that Mr. Putin and Mr. Trump planned to meet in the coming days, but it did not set an exact date for the summit. Russian and U.S. officials said it could take place as early as next week.

特朗普的特使史蒂夫·维特科夫在莫斯科与普京见面后次日，克里姆林宫周四上午证实，普京和特朗普计划在未来几天举行会晤，但没有确定峰会的具体日期。俄罗斯和美国官员表示，峰会可能最早在下周举行。

据官方媒体发布的照片，普京总统周三会见了特朗普总统的特使维特科夫。

Mr. Trump had told European leaders that he intended to meet Mr. Putin and then follow up shortly afterward by meeting with both Mr. Putin and President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, together. However, a Kremlin aide said on Thursday that Moscow had not agreed to a three-way meeting.

特朗普曾告诉欧洲领导人，他打算先与普京会晤，然后不久再与普京和乌克兰总统泽连斯基一起会晤。然而，克里姆林宫的一名助手周四表示，莫斯科尚未同意举行三方会议。

“That option was simply mentioned by the American representative during the course of conversation at the Kremlin,” Yuri Ushakov, Mr. Putin’s foreign policy aide, told reporters. He said that Moscow was “completely without comment” on the idea of a three-way summit and that it had not been discussed “concretely” with Mr. Witkoff.

“这不过是美国代表在克里姆林宫会谈过程中提到的选项，”普京的外交政策助手尤里·乌沙科夫对记者表示。他说，莫斯科对三方峰会的想法“完全不置可否”，也没有与维特科夫“具体”讨论过。

Hours later, Mr. Putin said that he was not opposed to meeting Mr. Zelensky — a prospect Ukraine’s leader has repeatedly requested — but reiterated that “certain conditions” must be met before such a meeting can take place.

几个小时后，普京表示，自己并不反对与泽连斯基会面——乌克兰领导人多次提出这一请求——但他重申，在此之前必须满足“某些条件”。

“We are unfortunately, at the moment, far away from those conditions,” Mr. Putin said.

“遗憾的是，目前我们离那些条件还差很远，”普京说。

Mr. Trump, pressed by a reporter in the Oval Office about whether Mr. Putin had to meet with Mr. Zelensky in a trilateral meeting with Mr. Trump in order for Mr. Trump to meet with Mr. Putin, Mr. Trump said, “No he doesn’t,” according to a pool report.

在白宫随行记者团的一份报道，在椭圆形办公室，当记者追问是否必须先举行美俄乌三方会谈，特朗普才会与普京会晤时，特朗普表示“不需要”。

Mr. Zelensky, in a statement on X, said a number of meeting formats had been floated.

泽连斯基在X上的一份声明中表示，已经提出了多种会议形式。

“Ukraine is not afraid of meetings and expects the same brave approach from the Russian side,” he said. “It is time we ended the war. Thank you to everyone who is helping.”

“乌克兰不怕会面，并期待俄罗斯方面展现同样勇敢的态度，”他说。“是时候结束战争了。感谢所有提供帮助的人。”

Since initiating a rapprochement with the Kremlin in January, the Trump administration had been holding out on agreeing to a summit with Mr. Putin, looking for a sign from the Kremlin that the Russian leader was in fact serious about a real cease-fire on the battlefield.

自1月与克里姆林宫修复关系以来，特朗普政府一直未同意与普京举行峰会，他希望能从克里姆林宫的示意中看到，俄罗斯领导人确实想要一场真正的停火。

The White House’s sudden commitment to hold a summit has raised questions about what, if anything, Mr. Putin agreed to on Wednesday during his talks in Moscow with Mr. Witkoff.

白宫突然决定举行峰会引发了外界关于普京是否在周三与维特科夫的会谈中达成了什么一致的质疑。

Exactly what the two men discussed is unclear. Mr. Ushakov told reporters on Wednesday that Mr. Putin had conveyed certain “signals” to Mr. Witkoff on Ukraine, but the Kremlin aide did not go into detail.

两人讨论的具体内容尚不清楚。乌沙科夫周三告诉记者，普京已就乌克兰问题向维特科夫传达了某些“信号”，但这位克里姆林宫助手未加详细说明。

One possibility is that Mr. Putin signaled more flexibility on the issue of how land could be divided up or traded in any settlement between Russia and Ukraine.

一种可能性是，普京在俄乌之间就土地的分割或交换问题上表现出了更大的灵活性。

上个月哈尔科夫遭受俄罗斯袭击，现场的乌克兰消防员。

For months, Russian envoys have insisted in talks with U.S. counterparts that Moscow be given the entirety of the four regions that the Kremlin claimed to have “annexed” from Ukraine in late 2022, even though vast swaths of the territory remained under Ukrainian control. U.S. negotiators viewed that position as unreasonable and saw it as a sign that Moscow wasn’t serious about negotiating an end to the war.

几个月来，俄罗斯特使在与美国同行的谈判中始终坚持要求莫斯科必须完全控制克里姆林宫声称在2022年底自乌克兰“吞并”的四个地区，尽管这些领土的大部分仍在乌克兰控制之下。美国谈判代表视此立场为无理要求，认为这恰恰表明俄方根本无意认真谈判以结束战争。

Some analysts suggested that Mr. Putin had told envoys during talks this year to stick only to the hardest-line position, in order to force a meeting between him and Mr. Trump. Russian officials may be hoping that a one-on-one summit will give Mr. Putin an opportunity to sway Mr. Trump, long sympathetic to Russia, back to supporting the Russian leader’s views on what he calls “the root causes of the conflict.”

一些分析人士认为，普京曾指示特使在今年会谈中只坚持最强硬立场，以促成他与特朗普的会晤。俄罗斯官员可能希望一对一的峰会将给普京一个机会，说服长期以来同情俄罗斯的特朗普重新支持这位俄罗斯领导人关于其所谓“冲突根源”的看法。

People close to the Kremlin, as well as political analysts, say that Mr. Putin’s demands — to exclude Ukraine from NATO, limit Ukrainian military capabilities and lay the groundwork for a more Moscow-friendly government in Kyiv — are more crucial to him than the specifics of what territory Russia ultimately controls.

接近克里姆林宫的人士以及政治分析人士表示，普京的要求——将乌克兰排除在北约之外、限制乌克兰的军事能力，并为在基辅建立一个亲莫斯科的政府奠定基础——对他来说比俄罗斯最终控制哪些领土一类的细节问题更为重要。

“The most important thing for Putin is NATO and these ironclad guarantees that Ukraine will not be in NATO and that NATO countries will not develop a military presence inside Ukraine, plus a set of political demands on Ukraine itself,” said Tatiana Stanovaya, senior fellow at the Carnegie Moscow Eurasia Center. Other demands, she added, might be open to negotiation.

“对普京来说最重要的是北约和乌克兰不会加入北约、北约国家不会在乌克兰境内驻军这些铁定的保证，再加上一系列对乌克兰本身的政治要求，”卡内基莫斯科欧亚中心的高级研究员塔季扬娜·斯塔诺瓦娅表示。她还补充说，其他要求可能可以谈判。

Moscow has not formally demarcated the borders of the four “annexed” regions, which Ms. Stanovaya said suggested that there had always been some flexibility on the land issue. She didn’t exclude the possibility that Russia would be open to exchanging certain territories.

莫斯科没有正式划定四个“吞并”地区的边界，斯坦诺瓦娅说这表明在土地问题上一直存在一定的灵活性。她没有排除俄罗斯可能愿意在谈判中交换某些领土的可能性。

Some analysts believe that Russian-controlled land in regions of Ukraine that Moscow has not “annexed” would be most likely to be offered for exchange in negotiations. Russia holds 1,719 square kilometers, or about 660 square miles, of Ukrainian territory in the regions of Kharkiv and Sumy — neither of which has been “annexed” by Russia — according to DeepState, a Ukrainian group that maps the conflict using combat footage.

一些分析人士认为，俄罗斯控制的、莫斯科尚未“吞并”的乌方土地最有可能在谈判中用于交换。根据乌克兰团体DeepState的数据，俄罗斯在哈尔科夫和苏梅地区控制了1719平方公里的乌克兰领土——这两个地区都没有被俄罗斯“吞并”。DeepState利用战场影像资料来跟踪记录冲突进展并绘制地图。

But Mr. Putin “doesn’t keep a pre-prepared plan,” Ms. Stanovaya said. “He lives for today. He knows what he wants to get in the end.”

但斯坦诺瓦娅说，普京“没有事先准备好的计划”。“他只关注眼前，知道自己最终想要得到什么。”

In this case, she said, what Russia’s leader wants is for Ukraine to stop being what he sees as an “anti-Russia project” and to return to Moscow’s sphere of influence.

她说，在这种情况下，这位俄罗斯领导人希望的是乌克兰不再成为他眼中的“反俄项目”，并回归莫斯科的势力范围。

“So, either he achieves this through NATO guarantees, that is, guarantees from the West, or he achieves this through political control within Ukraine,” Ms. Stanovaya said. “One or the other, or both. Then, we’ll see how it goes. Territory is very secondary.”

“所以，要么他通过北约的保证——即西方的保证——来实现这一点，要么他通过在乌克兰内部的政治控制来实现这一点，”斯坦诺瓦娅说。“二者选其一，或两者兼而有之。然后，我们再看情况会怎么样。领土问题是非常次要的。”

There is little indication that, despite increasing threats from the White House, Mr. Putin has abandoned his hard-line goals.

尽管白宫的威胁不断升级，但几乎没有迹象表明，普京已经放弃了自己的强硬目标。

Russian forces have the advantage on the battlefield, so a decision by Mr. Putin to settle rather than try to conquer more of Ukraine should be seen as a concession in itself, said Feodor Voitolovsky, director of the Institute of World Economy and International Relations, a Russian government-funded research group.

俄罗斯军队在战场上占有优势，因此普京如果选择停火而不是试图征服更多的乌克兰领土，这本身就应该被视为一种让步，俄罗斯政府资助的研究机构世界经济与国际关系研究所主任费奥多尔·沃伊托洛夫斯基表示。

“We could fight some more, wait a few more months and achieve even greater, more serious results on the battlefield,” said Mr. Voitolovsky, who serves on advisory boards at the Russian Foreign Ministry and Security Council.

“我们可以再打一段时间，再等几个月，在战场上取得更大、更重要的成果，”在俄罗斯外交部和安全委员会担任顾问的沃伊托洛夫斯基说。

But while Russian forces have been advancing in Ukraine since launching a summer offensive, they have suffered significant losses and are far from seizing the entirety of the four “annexed” regions.

但是，尽管俄罗斯军队自发起夏季攻势以来一直在乌克兰推进，但他们也损失惨重，距离占领四个“吞并”地区的全部领土仍然遥远。

Ms. Stanovaya said that Mr. Putin would prefer the capitulation of Mr. Zelensky, under pressure from Mr. Trump, so Russian forces can stop fighting. But the logic of Russia’s leader, she said, is “we will get what we want at any cost,” regardless of the economic or societal toll.

斯坦诺瓦娅说，普京更希望泽连斯基在特朗普的压力下投降，这样俄罗斯军队就可以停止战斗。但她表示，这位俄罗斯领导人的逻辑是，“我们会不惜一切代价得到我们想要的，”无论经济或社会代价有多大。

“They are prepared to fight for years if necessary,” she added. “Of course, they’d prefer not to.”

“如果有必要，他们准备打上多年的时间，”她补充道。“能不打当然更好。”