Donald Trump's Nobel Peace Prize is nowhere in sight

By all appearances, US President Donald Trump wants to be remembered not just as a former US president, but as a global peacemaker, a man whose handshakes stopped wars and whose name belongs beside the likes of Mandela and Carter in Nobel history. But Trump’s latest maneuver, positioning himself as the driving force behind peace between Russia and Ukraine, is quickly unraveling. What began with a red carpet in Alaska and bold declarations is now mired in diplomatic limbo, military escalation and strategic deadlock.

Despite the showmanship, there is little substance behind Trump’s claim that peace is imminent. His effort to present himself as the indispensable broker of global ceasefires has always relied more on headlines than on hard results. Nowhere is this clearer than in the Russia-Ukraine conflict, the most brutal and geopolitically significant war in Europe since World War II. Neither Russian President Vladimir Putin nor Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has shown serious interest in compromise, much less a Trump-led resolution.

A red carpet, a photo op but no peace
The Alaska summit between Trump and Putin ten days ago was billed as a breakthrough. Trump claimed it would set the stage for a trilateral meeting with Zelensky, portraying himself as the only leader capable of bringing the two warring sides together. The message from the summit was that Trump is the man who can stop the killing, force diplomacy and end the war.

But just days later, that illusion has collapsed. Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has openly said there is no agreed-upon agenda for a summit with Zelensky. He bluntly accused the Ukrainian president of rejecting talks outright. Meanwhile, Zelensky countered by accusing the Kremlin of deliberately preventing such a meeting, insisting that Russia continues to act in bad faith. Both sides remain entrenched, and Trump’s envisioned summit between the two is nowhere in sight.

At the same time, Russian drone and missile strikes on Ukrainian cities have intensified, including a direct hit on a US-owned electronics plant, further straining any narrative of peace. The war rages on, and Trump’s optimistic timeline has been blown apart by hard realities on the ground.

Trump's inflated peace claims and the hard reality
Trump’s tendency to overstate, or even outright fabricate, peace achievements is not new. He claimed he brokered peace between India and Pakistan and prevented a nuclear war during India's Operation Sindoor. India has refuted this claim, saying it was Pakistan's military which requested for a ceasefire after India pounded nearly a dozen of its air bases with missiles. .

His supporters often cite the Abraham Accords from his previous term - the normalization deals between Israel and a handful of Arab states - as a diplomatic win. But those agreements were mostly built on already warming relations and had little to do with resolving active wars or deep-rooted conflicts.

Now, Trump is applying the same formula to the Russia-Ukraine war. He asserts his role, stages a spectacle, and claims the credit. But this time, the conflict is not only ongoing, but existential for both Kyiv and Moscow. Unlike in previous cases, this war cannot be glossed over with vague declarations or handshake diplomacy. And unlike the US’s traditional allies in the case of Abraham Accords, neither Putin nor Zelensky is willing to grant Trump a symbolic victory for nothing.

Putin’s demands for peace are not compromises but only demands. According to reports, he wants Ukraine to surrender the entire Donbas region, abandon its NATO aspirations, and agree to neutrality enforced by keeping Western troops out. In return, Russia may offer to halt its military campaign and return a few smaller occupied territories. For Zelensky, these are not terms of peace but the seeds of future aggression. European leaders have warned that granting Russia concessions now would only embolden it to strike again later in Kyiv. Zelensky, for his part, has flatly refused to “gift” any Ukrainian territory to Russia. He continues to call for increased sanctions and weapons, not concessions. The gap between the two sides is vast and Trump’s peace narrative, built on the illusion of consensus, has no place to stand.

The Nobel remains out of reach
Trump has made no secret of his desire for the Nobel Peace Prize. He has frequently compared himself to past laureates and lamented the fact that he has not been awarded the honor. His Alaska summit might have made for compelling theater, but the follow-up, which is crucial in diplomacy, has been a failure. Instead of substantive de-escalation, Russia has intensified its bombing while Ukraine has dug in. The war is escalating, not ending.

Even Trump’s own actions raise doubts about his seriousness. By imposing an artificial August 8 deadline for Putin to agree to peace and then walking it back in favour of a summit, he showed more concern for optics than outcomes. And by failing to secure even a basic agreement between the two sides before flying to Alaska, he revealed how shallow his diplomatic effort truly was.

Trump’s campaign to brand himself as a global peace broker is running into the one thing he can’t spin, the hard reality. The Russia-Ukraine war is not a stage where leaders make dramatic deals in front of cameras. It is a grinding, bloody conflict rooted in deep political, territorial and historical divides. Neither side is looking for a quick fix, and certainly not on Trump’s terms.

Until there is genuine progress beyond just summits and statements Trump’s Nobel Peace Prize will remain what it has always been, a fantasy built on wishful thinking, tall claims and diplomatic shortcuts.