Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, left, and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz attend a video meeting of European leaders with US President Donald Trump on the Ukraine in Berlin, Germany, on August 13, 2025, ahead of the summit between the US and Russian leaders.

Two days ahead of the summit between US and Russian leaders that is being closely watched across the globe, tensions from all parties are mounting amid a plethora of mixed signals. The White House on Tuesday termed it a "listening session" for US President Donald Trump as European and Ukrainian leaders spoke to Trump at a virtual meeting on Wednesday ahead of the Trump-Putin summit. 

With Moscow and Kiev entrenched in their respective demands, and not all parties involved in the conflict are represented at the table, the conditions for brokering peace may still be absent, said experts, adding that the forthcoming Trump-Putin summit is likely to be more of a political pageant than peacemaker.

A virtual summit involving US President Donald Trump, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and several European leaders including German Chancellor Friedrich Merz was held on Wednesday, CNN reported.

European leaders are hoping the discussions shaped Trump's view ahead of his meeting on Friday in Alaska with Russian President Vladimir Putin, per CNN. They hope to impart to Trump that Russia must agree to a ceasefire before issues of territory are discussed, that no decision about Ukraine can be made without Ukraine, and that Ukraine will not accept land swaps, CNN reported.

"We are focusing now to ensure that it does not happen - engaging with US partners and staying coordinated and united on the European side. Still a lot of time until Friday," Reuters quoted one senior official from Eastern Europe as saying. 

The EU should not set conditions for talks to which its leaders are not invited, but should initiate its own summit with Russia, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said on Tuesday, the Xinhua News Agency reported.

But Trump has said he is approaching the upcoming summit as a "feel-out" session, with few advance expectations for how it will proceed. The White House on Tuesday termed it a "listening session," CNN reported on Wednesday. 

Trump will meet Putin at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Anchorage on Friday, The New York Times quoted a White House official familiar with the planning as saying on Tuesday.

"The president feels like, 'look, I've got to look at this guy across the table. I need to see him face to face. I need to hear him one-on-one. I need to make an assessment by looking at him,'" US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a morning radio interview Tuesday with Sid Rosenberg.

On the battlefield, Russian forces have made a sudden thrust into eastern Ukraine near the coal mining town of Dobropillia, Reuters reported, calling the advance one of the most dramatic in the last year.

China supports all efforts conducive to the peaceful settlement of the crisis, and is glad to see Russia and the US keep in contact, improve their relations and advance the political settlement of the Ukraine crisis, Lin Jian, a spokesperson from China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said on Tuesday.

We hope all parties concerned and stakeholders will take part in the negotiation process in due course and reach a fair, lasting and binding peace agreement acceptable to parties concerned at an early date, Lin said. 

As their anxiety is mounting, Europe and Ukraine lack independence in defense and hold limited influence over the negotiations between Russia and the US, Li Haidong, a professor at China Foreign Affairs University, told the Global Times.

Li went on to say that the issues awaiting discussion at the summit are complex and wide-ranging, and therefore cannot be resolved in a single meeting. "US' focus for the summit is likely not on settling the conflict, but on easing tensions between Washington and Moscow," he said. "Trump may still be uncertain about the outcome, and given the current situation, Putin is unlikely to compromise."

Zelensky on Saturday bluntly rejected Trump's suggestion that Kiev would be required to give up territory as part of a peace deal with Russia.

Speaking with reporters on Tuesday in Kiev, Zelensky reaffirmed that Ukraine would reject any Russian proposal to give up the Donbas region in exchange for a ceasefire, warning it could be used as a springboard for future attacks, BBC reported.

Once there is a truce, Moscow wants a deal to require Ukraine to relinquish some of the territories Russia has seized since 2014 and the four regions in 2022, PBS reported on Sunday. 

The PBS said Russia says a peace treaty should have Ukraine declare its neutral status between Russia and the West, abandon its bid to join NATO and limit the size of its armed forces, along with other terms.

Both Russia and Ukraine remain firm in their conditions for a ceasefire, and given that the conflict involves Ukraine and Europe, the high-profile meeting between Trump and Putin carries more symbolic political weight than holding real prospects for a breakthrough on a Russia-Ukraine ceasefire, Yang Jin, an associate research fellow at the Institute of Russian, Eastern European and Central Asian Studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times.