Gudziak: Trump-Putin summit fails to advance peace, justice

(OSV News) -- The Alaska summit between President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin held on Aug. 15 has ultimately failed to address the "fundamental moral and geopolitical questions" of Russia's multiyear war on Ukraine, said Metropolitan Archbishop Borys A. Gudziak of the Ukrainian Catholic Archeparchy of Philadelphia.

The archbishop, who shepherds Ukrainian Catholics in the U.S., shared his thoughts by phone with OSV News and in a statement posted to his Facebook page shortly after the two leaders met for some three hours at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Anchorage, Alaska.

Initially planned as a one-on-one sit-down between Trump and Putin, the meeting was expanded to include U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, special envoy Steve Witkoff, and two Russian officials, foreign minister Sergey Lavrov and foreign affairs adviser Yuri Ushakov.

Trump -- who afterwards admitted that no deal on ending the war had been reached -- warmly greeted a smiling Putin, who spoke first at the post-meeting press conference. It ended without either leader taking any questions, and instead heading to their respective aircraft.

Speaking with Sean Hannity of Fox News before boarding Air Force One for his return flight, Trump urged Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who had been sidelined from the Alaska summit, to "make a deal."

Putin has maintained a maximalist approach to the war, insisting that Ukraine cede at least four eastern regions -- Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia -- to Russia, along with Crimea, which Russia first invaded in 2014.

In 1994, Russia -- along with the U.S. and the United Kingdom -- had pledged security assurances for the newly independent Ukraine's sovereignty, in exchange for Ukraine's unilateral surrender of its Soviet-era nuclear arsenal.

Although "the worst did not happen" and "those standing for freedom and the innocent citizens of Ukraine were not sold out" from the meeting by any announced concessions of Ukrainian territory, Archbishop Gudziak said, "The cause of freedom, justice and peace was not advanced."

He described Putin -- who has called the fall of the former Soviet Union "the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century" -- as a "genocidal war criminal" who "speaks explicitly about his aggressive intentions to re-conquer the countries that freed themselves from the atheistic Soviet yoke."

Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine -- launched in 2022, and continuing attacks initiated in 2014 -- has been accused of violating multiple instruments of international law, including the United Nations Charter, the Geneva Conventions and the Genocide Convention, with several reports detailing widespread atrocities committed by Russian forces against Ukrainian soldiers and civilians alike.

According to Ukrainian authorities, Russia has systematically deported at least 19,546 Ukrainian children during the conflict, subjecting them to "patriotic re-education" designed to erase their Ukrainian identity, putting them at risk for abuse and forced adoption by Russian families. The actual number of deported children is feared to be far higher, with Russian child commissioner Maria Lvova-Belova -- who, along with Putin is the subject of an International Criminal Court arrest warrant for the forced transfers -- admitting that some 700,000 Ukrainian children were in Russian custody.

Citing two unnamed White House officials, Reuters later reported that during the Aug. 15 meeting, Trump had hand-delivered a personal letter from his Slovenian-born wife Melania (who was not at the Alaska summit) to Putin, in which the issue of the abducted Ukrainian children was raised.

Still, Archbishop Gudziak noted that "the desultory discussions did not lead to a single concession on the part of the aggressor."

Instead, the archbishop said, "having ordered another barrage of deadly bombings on the day of the summit, he (Putin) was allowed to stand together with the president of the United States before a press conference backdrop." The backgroup read "Pursuing Peace."

The archbishop reflected on the meeting's coincidence with the Aug. 15 feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, known as the Dormition of the Theotokos among Eastern Catholics and Christians.

"This morning's prayer in our cathedral on the feast of the Dormition was one of confidence in the Lord and the protection of the Mother of God," he said.

Despite the "great illusion that the mighty of this world determine history" and "decide our fate," said Archbishop Gudziak.

"The truth is that we are in the Lord's hands and his truth will prevail," he said, comparing Ukraine's situation to the biblical story of David and Goliath.

Archbishop Gudziak said that notwithstanding "the tremendous buildup" and "the hype regarding this meeting, it is clear that not much happened, providentially so."

At the same time, he said, "The fundamental moral and geopolitical questions are not yet being faced squarely neither by Russia nor the West."

"Until they do," he said, "Ukrainians will be paying the ultimate price."