WASHINGTON: United States President Donald Trump said on Thursday that he believes Russian President Vladimir Putin will make a deal on his war on Ukraine and that the threat of sanctions against Russia likely played a role in Moscow’s decision to seek a meeting.
Trump is scheduled to meet with Putin in Alaska tomorrow.
The US president said he is unsure whether an immediate ceasefire can be achieved but expressed interest in brokering a peace agreement.
“I believe now he’s convinced that he’s going to make a deal. He’s going to make a deal. I think he’s going to, and we’re going to find out,” Trump said in an interview on Fox News Radio’s ‘The Brian Kilmeade Show.’
Trump also mentioned during the Fox interview that he has three locations in mind for a follow-up meeting with Putin and Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky, though he noted that a second meeting is not guaranteed.
He said staying in Alaska for a three-way summit would be the easiest scenario.
“Depending on what happens with my meeting, I’m going to be calling up President Zelensky, and let’s get him over to wherever we’re going to meet,” Trump said.
He said a second meeting, featuring Trump, Putin and Zelensky, would likely dig deeper into boundary issues. Zelensky has been adamant about not ceding territory that Russian forces occupy.
“The second meeting is going to be very, very important, because that’s going to be a meeting where they make a deal. And I don’t want to use the word ‘divvy things up’, but you know, to a certain extent, it’s not a bad term, okay?” he said.
“But there will be a give and take as to boundaries, lands, etc, etc. The second meeting is going to be very, very, very important. This meeting sets up like a chess game. This [first] meeting sets up a second meeting, but there is a 25 percent chance that this meeting will not be a successful meeting,” he said.
He said it would be up to Putin and Zelensky to strike an agreement.
“I’m not going to negotiate their deal. I’m going to let them negotiate their deal,” he said.
Earlier today, Putin spoke to his most senior ministers and security officials as he prepared for a meeting with Trump in Anchorage, Alaska, that could shape the endgame to the largest war in Europe since World War Two.
In televised comments, Putin said the US was “making, in my opinion, quite energetic and sincere efforts to stop the hostilities, stop the crisis, and reach agreements that are of interest to all parties involved in this conflict.”
This was happening, Putin said, “in order to create long-term conditions for peace between our countries, and in Europe, and in the world as a whole—if, by the next stages, we reach agreements in the area of control over strategic offensive weapons.”
His comments signalled that Russia will raise nuclear arms control as part of a wide-ranging discussion on security when he sits down with Trump.
A Kremlin aide said Putin and Trump would also discuss the “huge untapped potential” for Russia-US economic ties.
A senior Eastern European official, who requested anonymity to discuss sensitive matters, said Putin would try to distract Trump from Ukraine at the talks by offering him possible progress on nuclear arms control or something business-related.
“We hope Trump won’t be fooled by the Russians; he understands all [these] dangerous things,” the official said, adding that Russia’s only goal was to avoid any new sanctions and have existing sanctions lifted.
Russia controls around a fifth of Ukraine, and Zelensky and the Europeans worry that a deal could cement those gains, rewarding Putin for 11 years of efforts to seize Ukrainian land and emboldening him to expand further into Europe.
An EU diplomat said it would be “scary to see how it all unfolds in the coming hours. Trump had very good calls yesterday with Europe, but that was yesterday”.
Trump had shown willingness to join the security guarantees for Ukraine at a last-ditch virtual meeting with European leaders and Zelensky on Wednesday, European leaders said, though he made no public mention of them afterwards.
A car burns following what local authorities called a Ukrainian drone attack in Belgorod, Russia on August 14. — Reuters
Friday’s summit, the first Russia-US summit since June 2021, comes at one of the toughest moments for Ukraine in a war that has killed tens of thousands and displaced millions since Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022.
Speaking after Wednesday’s meeting, French President Emmanuel Macron said Trump had said the transatlantic Nato alliance should not be part of any security guarantees designed to protect Ukraine from future attacks in a post-war settlement.
However, Trump also said the US and all willing allies should be part of the security guarantees, Macron added.
Expanding on that, a European official told Reuters that Trump said on the call he was willing to provide some security guarantees for Europe, without spelling out what they would be.
It “felt like a big step forward,” said the official, who did not want to be named. It was not immediately clear what such guarantees could mean in practice.
On Wednesday, Trump threatened “severe consequences” if Putin does not agree to peace in Ukraine and has warned of economic sanctions if his meeting on Friday proves fruitless.
Russia is likely to resist Ukraine and Europe’s demands and has previously said its stance had not changed since it was first detailed by Putin in June 2024.
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