The upcoming Trump-Putin summit is taking place under the long shadow of a grim assessment from the Institute for the Study of War (ISW). The think tank’s analysis that Vladimir Putin is “uninterested in ending his war” directly contradicts President Trump’s optimistic framing of the talks.

The ISW, a Washington-based research group, has consistently argued that Putin is pursuing a maximalist victory in Ukraine and that his expressions of interest in peace are merely a tactic. They believe he is attempting to “extract bilateral concessions from the United States without meaningfully engaging in a peace process.”

This assessment presents a significant challenge to the very premise of the Alaska summit. If the ISW is correct, then Trump is not meeting a willing peace partner, but a strategic adversary who is using the meeting for his own ends—to sow discord, gain legitimacy, and play for time.

As the summit approaches, the world is faced with two competing realities: President Trump’s belief in a potential breakthrough and the ISW’s data-driven conclusion that the talks are a diplomatic illusion. The events in Alaska will serve as a real-time test of which assessment is more accurate.