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Trump suggests other European leaders could be invited to participate in a second meeting following Friday’s summit in Alaska
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Donald Trump has said that Vladimir Putin is “not going to mess around with me”, ahead of his crunch meeting with the Russian leader in Alaska.
The US president also floated the idea that European leaders could be invited to participate in a second meeting, which would include Volodymyr Zelensky.
The main aim of tomorrow’s meeting is to set up talks between Putin and the Ukrainian president, Mr Trump told Fox News Radio, adding that he has three locations in mind for such a meeting.
The US president, who is gearing up to meet his Russian counterpart for the first time since 2018, said that he thinks both leaders “will make peace”.
Friday’s talks between the presidents will include a one-on-one meeting, a bilateral lunch with both delegations and a press conference, the White House announced.
Earlier on Thursday, the Russian leader praised Mr Trump’s “sincere efforts” towards ending the war in Ukraine, telling Kremlin officials the US is making “quite energetic and sincere efforts to stop the fighting”.
The comments came after UK prime minister Sir Keir Starmer hosted Mr Zelensky at Downing Street for talks, greeting the Ukrainian president with a warm hug outside his residence.
The future of Ukraine’s industrial heartland in the east will almost certainly play a key role in talks between Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump as they prepare to meet in Alaska on Friday.
The Russian leader has demanded that Ukrainian forces withdraw from Donetsk as part of any any ceasefire deal, according to Volodymyr Zelensky.
The Ukrainian president has said that Mr Putin wants the remaining 30 per cent of the eastern region, which has seen some of the fiercest battles in the three-and-a-half year long war.
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European officials insisted to CNN that US President Trump come prepared to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin while the pair discuss Ukraine while the country’s president Volodymyr Zelensky is not present.
“He must be prepared because Putin is very, very well prepared,” one European official told the network about Friday’s meeting.
There is a “vulnerability” for Trump to be alone in the room with Putin because the Russian president is “an excellent player,” the official added.
Another official acknowledged the US President has been tougher on Russia recently. On Thursday, for example, Mr Trump threatened “severe consequences” if Mr Putin doesn’t agree to peace in Ukraine.
Still, this official warned: “It seems Trump doesn’t really believe in the possibility of Ukrainian success.”
One day before the two world leaders were scheduled to meet, US President Donald Trump told reporters Thursday that Russian President Vladimir Putin is “not going to mess around” with him.
“I am president, and he’s not going to mess around with me,” he said during a press conference at the White House.
“I’ll know within the first two minutes, three minutes, four minutes or five minutes… whether or not we’re going to have a good meeting or a bad meeting. And if it’s a bad meeting, it’ll end very quickly, and if it’s a good meeting, we’re going to end up getting peace in the pretty near future.”
The US president remained cautiously optimistic that the leaders of Russia and Ukraine “will make peace.”
“We’re going to see what happens,” he said. “And, I think President Putin will make peace. I think President Zelensky will make peace. We’ll see if they can get along and if they can, it’ll be great.”
Meanwhile, earlier in the day on Thursday, Mr Putin praised Mr Trump for making “quite an energetic and sincere effort, in my opinion, to stop hostilities, to stop the crisis and to reach an agreement that is of interest to all those involved in this conflict.”
Maryland Democratic Senator Chris Van Hollen says he’s worried that Russian President Putin is playing US President Trump like a “fiddle,” he told NBC News.
“I’m always in favor of talking, and we’d all like to see peace, but I’m very worried because, from day one, while Donald Trump said he was going to end the war in Ukraine, he has been played like a fiddle by Vladimir Putin,” Van Hollen told the outlet Thursday.
“All Putin sees is Trump’s weakness, and so I’m very worried that he will throw our allies and the people of Ukraine under the bus, which is what he’s done from day one,” he added.
The West must not be intimidated by Vladimir Putin, says the head of the British armed forces, ahead a crucial meeting between the Russian leader and US President Donald Trump.
Mr Trump says he believes Putin is ready to make a deal to end Russia’s war with Ukraine when the two leaders meet in Anchorage in Alaska on Friday.
It is set to be followed by a second meeting involving Volodymyr Zelensky, which could also be attended by European leaders, Mr Trump suggested on Thursday night.
But writing for The Telegraph, Admiral Sir Tony Radakin warned Nato allies against submitting to Moscow’s demands, and said: “Putin doesn’t want a war with Nato because he would lose. So we should not be cowed by his rhetoric or his campaign of sabotage, outrageous as it may be.”
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Sir Keir Starmer and Volodymyr Zelensky are united in their “strong resolve” to secure a just peace in Ukraine ahead of the summit between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin.
After a meeting at No 10, the prime minister and the Ukrainian president expressed cautious optimism about the prospect of a truce “as long as Putin takes action to prove he is serious” about ending the war, Downing Street said.
Mr Trump and the Russian president are due to meet in Alaska on Friday, raising fears the pair will try to decide the end of the war themselves, leaving Ukraine excluded and putting Europe’s future security in jeopardy.
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Former Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba says this deal has “nothing to do” with a land swap.
“There is nothing to swap because all this land is Ukrainian,” the ex-foreign minister told CNN.
“The only viable solution for the land issue, which indeed is the biggest obstacle in negotiations, is to leave this matter in the gray zone, where both sides will claim their title of ownership on this land,” he said.
“If President Putin doesn’t make that concession, these talks are not going to go anywhere.”
Ahead of Donald Trump’s summit with Vladimir Putin in Alaska on Friday, retired U.S. Army Gen. Wesley Clark has said it is vital for the president to convince the Russian leader that he cannot win the war in Ukraine.
Speaking on The Record with Greta Van Susteren on Newsmax on Wednesday, Clark, a former Democratic presidential candidate in 2004, warned that Putin would not respond to conventional diplomatic threats.
“We’ve made so many threats to Russia over the last six months about consequences, and they mostly get postponed,” Clark said.
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