{"id":160528,"date":"2025-08-13T13:54:03","date_gmt":"2025-08-13T13:54:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/trump-putin-summit-latest-us-president-begins-urgent-talks-with-zelensky-as-he-says-european-leaders-want-a-deal-the-independent\/"},"modified":"2025-08-13T13:54:03","modified_gmt":"2025-08-13T13:54:03","slug":"trump-putin-summit-latest-us-president-begins-urgent-talks-with-zelensky-as-he-says-european-leaders-want-a-deal-the-independent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/trump-putin-summit-latest-us-president-begins-urgent-talks-with-zelensky-as-he-says-european-leaders-want-a-deal-the-independent\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump-Putin summit latest: US president begins urgent talks with Zelensky as he says European leaders \u2018want a deal\u2019 – The Independent"},"content":{"rendered":"

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European leaders are meeting virtually with Zelensky and Merz ahead of Trump\u2019s summit with Putin on Friday
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<\/a>US president Donald Trump<\/a> has reportedly begun an urgent meeting with <\/a>Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky<\/a> and German chancellor Friedrich Merz ahead of a summit with Russian president Vladimir Putin in Anchorage, Alaska<\/a> to end the war in Ukraine.<\/a><\/a>
Other world leaders – including coalition of the willing members such as Sir Keir Starmer – are set to join the conversation.
European leaders remain concerned that the Russian president will set his sights on them if a lenient ceasefire deal on Ukraine<\/a> is brokered by Trump, who said Europe\u2019s heads of state are \u201cgreat people who want to see a deal done.\u201d
It comes as Russia\u2019s foreign ministry said its stance on ending the three-and-a-half-year-old war remained \u201cunchanged\u201d since June 2024, in which Putin demanded a full Ukrainian withdrawal from four regions of the country that Russia has claimed as its own territory but does not fully control.
Zelensky said that Putin has demanded Ukrainian forces withdraw from Donetsk<\/a> as part of any potential ceasefire deal, but the Ukrainian leader has vowed Ukraine<\/a> would \u201cnever leave\u201d the Donbas<\/a> and warned Mr Putin\u2019s troops could use it as a spring board for a future invasion.
Wayne Jordash KC, President of Global Rights Compliance and lead of the Mobile Justice Teams, has emphasised the need to stand behind Ukraine and international law as European leaders are meeting with Trump and Zelensky ahead of Friday\u2019s summit with Putin.
“Any ceasefire deal agreed in Alaska that forces Ukraine into conceding its sovereign territory will amount to a violation of the UN Charter – the most fundamental principle of international law – and an abandonment of Ukrainian civilians living under brutal Russian occupation.
\u201cToday, European leaders have an opportunity to demonstrate their unwavering commitment to supporting Ukraine and upholding international law. European leaders are legally obliged to ensure that illegal attempts to redraw Ukraine’s borders through force are resisted today, tomorrow and for all time. Whether Crimea, Donbas or any other region, Ukraine’s borders are not bargaining chips. Any attempt to treat them as such is legally void and all states are under a duty to declare and resist.
\u201cA ceasefire must be accompanied by a credible deal which delivers a path to justice for Ukrainian civilians who have endured widespread and systematic atrocities at the hands of Russian forces.\u201d
Two days after he twice said he was ‘going to Russia<\/a>‘ for his Alaska summit with Vladimir Putin<\/a>, President Donald Trump<\/a> used a Soviet-era name to describe Russia\u2019s second-largest city as he attacked a former adviser on social media.
Writing on Truth Social to complain about \u201cvery unfair media\u201d coverage of his upcoming summit with Russian president Vladimir Putin, he said the press would even go so far to say he\u2019d made a \u201cbad deal\u201d even if he reached an agreement for the United States to acquire \u201cMoscow and Leningrad\u201d without giving up anything in return.
The president appeared to be unaware of one small detail: The city he called \u201cLeningrad\u201d is actually called St. Petersburg and has been since city residents voted to ditch the Soviet-era name in June 1991.
Andrew Feinberg, our DC correspondent, reports:<\/em><\/strong>
Trump and Putin will sit face-to-face <\/a>for the first time in seven years on Friday for talks aimed at ending the war in Ukraine<\/a>.
The Russian president<\/a> will fly into Anchorage, Alaska<\/a>, where he will meet his US<\/a> counterpart at a remote military installation which plays host to some of America\u2019s most fearsome fighter jets. It has been visited by several US presidents<\/a> in the past.
Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson<\/a>, Alaska<\/a>\u2019s largest military base<\/a>, combines the Air Force<\/a>\u2019s Elmendorf base with the US Army<\/a>\u2019s Fort Richardson.
The mission of the base is to defend US interests in the Asia Pacific region. It had particular strategic importance during the Cold War<\/a> as the closest point between Alaska and Russia, lying just 3 miles apart.
It is home to more than 32,000 people, which is roughly 10 per cent of Anchorage<\/a>\u2019s entire population.
Alex Croft reports:<\/em><\/strong>
US treasury secretary Scott Bessent has said sanctions or secondary tariffs could grow if president Donald Trump’s meeting with Vladimir Putin does not go well.
Mr Bessent also called on European leaders to also leverage sanctions in the event the meeting fails to be productive.
“He will make it clear to president Putin that all options are on the table,” Mr Bessent told Bloomberg Television in an interview.
Donald Trump has complained that he id receiving unfair media coverage about his meeting with Vladimir Putin.
\u201cVery unfair media is at work on my meeting with Putin,\u201d the US president wrote on Truth Social.
A number of media and political figures have been critical of the upcoming meeting, which will not include Volodymyr Zelensky, amid fears that Mr Trump could make proposals which Ukraine and its allies would regard as a capitulation.
\u201cConstantly quoting fired losers and really dumb people like John Bolton, who just said that, even though the meeting is on American soil, \u2018Putin has already won.\u2019
\u201cWhat\u2019s that all about? We are winning on EVERYTHING,\u201d he added. \u201cThe Fake News is working overtime (No tax on overtime!). If I got Moscow and Leningrad free, as part of the deal with Russia, the Fake News would say that I made a bad deal!\u201d
\u201cDonald Trump<\/a> is meeting Vladimir Putin<\/a> in Alaska<\/a> in what the US <\/a>president has said may be little more than a \u201clook see\u201d<\/a>, but in truth may prove an encounter<\/a> that defines Europe -and global security – for decades.
\u201cFrom Trump\u2019s perspective, the summit may be part <\/a>of his drive for a Nobel Peace Prize by ending Putin\u2019s war against Ukraine<\/a> using the \u201cart of the deal\u201d. Putin, however, is likely to prevail and his agenda is the art of the steal \u2013 specifically a massive grab<\/a> of his neighbour\u2019s land.\u201d
World affairs editor Sam Kiley<\/strong><\/a> looks at the art of the deal versus the art of the steal, ahead of what could be a pivotal meeting on the Ukraine war.
Read more here:<\/em><\/strong>
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
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Notifications can be managed in browser preferences.Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged inPlease refresh your browser to be logged inNext articleEuropean leaders are meeting virtually with Zelensky and Merz ahead of Trump\u2019s summit with Putin on FridayFrom reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":160529,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-160528","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-us","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160528","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=160528"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160528\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/160529"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=160528"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=160528"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=160528"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}