Larry Johnson – Is Vladimir Putin Naive in Pursuing a Meeting with Donald Trump?
by Larry Johnson [8-10-2025 published] Larry C. Johnson(bio).
I don’t pretend to know what Vladimir Putin is thinking, nor do I know his motivation for agreeing to meet Donald Trump in Alaska on Friday, August 15. I note that the date is significant because it marks the day in 1945 that Emperor Hirohito announced Japan’s unconditional surrender, effectively ending the war in the Pacific.
The Soviet Union played a decisive role in pressuring Japan to end World War II by launching a massive invasion of Japanese-held territories in Manchuria and declaring war on Japan on August 8, 1945, two days after the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. Joseph Stalin delivered on the promise he had made to President Roosevelt at the Yalta Conference in February 1945. This action shattered Japan’s hopes of using Moscow as a mediator to negotiate peace and threatened a total military collapse by opening a new, overwhelming front. Soviet advances were swift and devastating, revealing Japan’s defenselessness in the north and generating panic among Japanese leaders.
Many historians argue that the Soviet attack weighed as heavily, or more so, than the atomic bombs in Japan’s decision to surrender. Japanese policymakers had previously considered Soviet neutrality vital for any negotiated surrender; the sudden reversal left continued resistance hopeless and risked occupation by communist forces. I would not be surprised that President Putin will remind Donald Trump of this past cooperation, i.e., that the US and Russia have a history of working together to achieve peace.
I think President Putin’s objective in meeting with Donald Trump is to secure a commitment that the US will end its support for Ukraine. Do I think that is a realistic objective? No. But it is a legitimate objective because Putin does not want the war to escalate into a global conflagration. I also think that Trump and his deluded team of national security advisors genuinely believe that Russia has suffered massive casualties and is on the brink of economic disaster. As I have pointed out in previous posts, both assumptions are foolishly wrong. I do believe that Putin will try to educate Trump on the true situation on the ground in Ukraine and will reinforce Russia’s longstanding position that this is not a territorial war with Ukraine… This is a proxy war with NATO.
While I have chided Putin — comparing him to Charlie Brown — I think that the Russian president fully understands the duplicity and the malevolence of the West, especially that of the US. Over the last 25 years, Putin has been repeatedly rebuffed in his attempt to join NATO and ignored in his warnings to the West to put a halt to efforts to incorporate Georgia. He wisely kept Russia out of a direct military confrontation with the West in the wake of the February 2014 Western-backed coup in Ukraine, while continuing to try to secure an agreement with the West that addressed Russia’s security concerns. Then there was the January 2022 rejection by the US of Putin’s draft treaty for a security deal that would have put an end to the eastward expansion of NATO.
Putin was harshly criticized in Russia for his decision to withdraw Russian forces from the Kiev region at the end of March 2022 as a gesture of Russia’s seriousness about concluding a peace agreement with Ukraine — an agreement that would have left Ukraine with the Donbas. Yet Putin did not hesitate to order the mobilization of reserves in September 2022 and the conscription of 120,000 new soldiers. It was at that moment that Putin realized that Russia would have to bring greater military pressure in order to crush Western ambitions.
My main point is this: I think Putin firmly and completely understands the threat from the West, but he also knows that Russia’s military might has expanded dramatically during the course of the Special Military Operation. It is not only the growth in the size of the Russian military that has boosted Putin’s confidence; it also is the fact that Russia has surpassed anything the West can field in terms of hypersonic missiles, drones, tank production, artillery and shell manufacturing, FAB bombs and electronic warfare.
Putin clearly understands that Trump’s urgent request for a face-to-face meeting is a direct result of the crisis on the battlefield that is enveloping both Ukraine and NATO. Russian forces are showing no signs of slowing their advance or pulling their punches in anticipation of the summit scheduled for Friday in Alaska.
I cannot rule out that Zelensky, with the full backing of his erstwhile European allies, will try to execute a dramatic military strike on Russia before Friday. If that happens, and significant damage is inflicted on Russia, then the summit will likely be derailed, unless Donald Trump strongly condemns the Ukrainian action and immediately curtails support for Ukraine. A successful attack without condemnation from Washington will be seen in Russia as just another act of US duplicity and further confirmation that the US has no serious intent on ending the war. At that point, Vladimir Putin will decide that there is no alternative but a military victory imposed by force.