WASHINGTON/MOSCOW/KYIV (Reuters) -U.S. President Donald Trump said he believes his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin is ready to end his war in Ukraine, speaking on the eve of Friday’s summit between the men, but that peace would likely require at least a second meeting involving Ukraine’s leader.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and his European allies have intensified their efforts this week to prevent any deal between the U.S. and Russia emerging from Friday’s summit in Alaska that leaves Ukraine vulnerable to future attack.
“I think President Putin will make peace, I think President Zelenskiy will make peace,” Trump told reporters at the White House. “We’ll see if they get along.”
Trump has downplayed talk of a ceasefire emerging from the summit and speculated about a possible second meeting to come, involving more leaders.
“I think it’s going to be a good meeting, but the more important meeting will be the second meeting that we’re having. We’re going to have a meeting with President Putin, President Zelenskiy, myself, and maybe we’ll bring some of the European leaders along. Maybe not. I don’t know that.”
Putin earlier 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 U.S. 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, “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-U.S. 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.
‘LIKE A CHESS GAME’
Trump said there would be a press conference after the talks, but that he did not know whether it would be joint. He also said in an earlier interview with Fox News that there would be “a give and take” on boundaries and land.
“This meeting sets up like a chess game,” Trump said. “This (first) meeting sets up a second meeting, but there is a 25% chance that this meeting will not be a successful meeting,” he said.
Trump said it would be up to Putin and Zelenskiy to strike an agreement, saying: “I’m not going to negotiate their deal.”
Russia controls around a fifth of Ukraine, and Zelenskiy 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 Zelenskiy on Wednesday, European leaders said, though he made no public mention of them afterwards.
Friday’s summit, the first Russia-U.S. 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 U.S. 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.
(Additional reporting by Catarina Demony, Andrew Osborn, Lili Bayer, Michel Rose, Andrew MacAskill, Sarah Marsh, Dmitry Antonov, Mark Trevelyan and Steve Holland; Writing by Matthias Williams, Philippa Fletcher and Gareth Jones; Editing by Rod Nickel)
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