Donald Trump says his Alaska summit with Vladimir Putin has a chance of failure

RNZ News

2 days ago

By
Brad Ryanrad Ryan
and
Elias Clure,
ABC
US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin meet on Friday to discuss the war between Russia and Ukraine.
Photo:
Brendan SMIALOWSKI and Maxim Shemetov / AFP
Donald Trump says his meeting with Vladimir Putin has a "25 per cent chance" of failing, as locals in Alaska hold days of peace prayers in the lead-up to the highly anticipated talks.
Friday's meeting at a military base in Anchorage has been on the minds of many in Alaska's biggest city, but particularly inside the Russian Orthodox churches that remain influential in the former Russian territory.
"I hate the war," churchgoer Ronalda Angasan told the
ABC
at one of the peace-prayer events. But like many here, Ms Angasan - who has both Russian and Indigenous Aleut heritage - is reluctant to ascribe blame.
"I just see it as they've all done bad, and they all have good people that live in the countries themselves, but the politicians themselves have all done bad," she said.
The church has a controversial place in the conflict. Its leadership in Moscow has been vocally supportive of Mr Putin's invasion, which it characterises as a "holy war".
MPs in Kyiv later voted to ban organisations linked to the Russian Orthodox Church, including the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, and some now believe followers in Ukraine are being unfairly persecuted.
But at Anchorage's St Innocent, where three evenings of peace prayers are being held before the Trump-Putin talks, churchgoers say they want to stay out of the politics and focus on peace.
"Everyone's a little bit heated politically, whether the war should happen or not, whose side you're on," church dean Father Thomas Rivas said.
"We might be one of the only churches that has a contingency of very pro-Putin people also very pro-Zelensky people, and so as a priest you walk the line, not as a compromise but you try and listen to all children."
Alaska - which the US bought from Russia in 1867 - is seen as slightly more neutral ground for the talks than the lower 48 states.
Trump now says he'd like a second round of talks to take place there too, and said it was possible Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and European leaders could be present at that time.
"Tomorrow, all I want to do is set the table for the next meeting, which should happen shortly," he said on the eve of the talks.
"I'd like to see it happen very quickly, very shortly after this meeting. I'd like to see it actually happen maybe in Alaska... because it's so much easier."
Earlier, he told
Fox News Radio
: "This meeting sets up like a chess game. This [first] meeting sets up a second meeting, but there is a 25 per cent chance that this meeting will not be a successful meeting."
Trump has repeatedly suggested "land swaps" are on the cards, even after Zelensky ruled out conceding territory.
"The worst case [scenario] would clearly be Trump makes a lot of concessions to Putin," said Professor Robert Orttung, a professor of international affairs and long-time scholar of Russian politics at George Washington University.
"Then you would see a break in the West. And the Europeans, to the extent they can, ramping up their capabilities."
It would be better to see the leaders fail to make a deal, he said.
"I think the best-case scenario would be a big nothing, which is what it looks like [will happen]," Professor Orttung said.
Trump told
Fox News Radio
that a final agreement would be up to Putin and Zelensky, who is not invited to the Friday talks.
"I'm not going to negotiate their deal. I'm going to let them negotiate their deal," he said.
In Ukraine, Friday's meeting has been met with a mixed response, particularly because Zelensky has not been invited.
The war has raged for more than three years, since Russia's full-scale invasion in February 2022.
While many people want it to end, what terms are agreed to remains a sticking point.
Lviv, a city in western Ukraine, is a long way from the front lines, but it hasn't been spared from the conflict.
Aerial attacks remain common and many people from the region have joined the fight.
Arrto was born in Lviv and his family has lived in the area for generations. He said he wanted an immediate ceasefire.
"A lot of my friends died in the war," Arrto said.
Arrto's vision for the future of Ukraine is vastly different to Putin's. He wants to see the country join the European Union.
He also doesn't want to give up territory to Russia.
"Every month I go to a funeral," he said, adding that he'd visited war graves in the area this week.
"My two cousins died in the war."
Opinion polling has consistently shown the idea of "land swaps" between Kyiv and the Kremlin to be deeply unpopular among Ukrainians.
"I think we have to make a big decision of Ukrainian people what we want," Maria, a hospitality worker in Lviv, told the
ABC
.
"We have to make collective decisions. It's not about the president's will or the parliament's will. This is about the whole of Ukraine. The people should decide what to do.
"We've put a lot of efforts for defending this territory. So we do not want to give any of it up."
In Anchorage, at the St Innocent Russian Orthodox Cathedral, Brad Angasan told the
ABC
: "My family have really suffered with the war over in Ukraine, watching our church divide the way that it has amongst the Ukrainians and the Russians".
"It's been very difficult to watch. We are very hopeful that this [upcoming Trump-Putin meeting] may lead to peace.
"If there's one thing we can offer, it's our prayers for peace and an end of suffering."
- ABC