Trump says Putin ready to make deal on Ukraine, U.S. hopes to include Zelenskyy
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy 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 Zelenskyy 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 Zelenskyy, 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 II.
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."
Russian President Vladimir Putin holds a meeting with members of Russia's top leadership in preparation for the upcoming Russia-U.S. summit in Alaska, at the Kremlin in Moscow, on Thursday. |
Sputnik / Pool / via REUTERS
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 signaled 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.
Trump said there would be a news 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 Zelenskyy to strike an agreement, saying: "I'm not going to negotiate their deal." Russia controls around a fifth of Ukraine, and Zelenskyy 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.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer walk out of 10 Downing Street, in London, on Thursday. |
REUTERS
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 Zelenskyy 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 said 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.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Japan Times
8 hours ago
- Japan Times
Banking's ailing climate coalition loses ground in Europe
Inside the world's largest climate coalition for banks, there's speculation that an exodus led by Wall Street could be about to spread to the European Union. The Net-Zero Banking Alliance (NZBA), an organization dedicated to decarbonizing global finance, may be facing defections by some large EU banks with sizeable U.S. exposures, according to a person close to the matter who asked not to be identified discussing private deliberations. The risk of being accused in the U.S. of having an anti-oil bias appears to be a key concern among the banks, the person said. EU exits from NZBA would mark a painful milestone for the group. In the U.S., where President Donald Trump's re-election has brought with it intensified political attacks on net-zero policies, banks have had to navigate a landscape in which NZBA commitments have come with the risk of lawsuits and Republican blacklists. In the EU, meanwhile, net zero has been enshrined in law and the bloc's banks stand out as some of the world's most climate conscious. A spokesperson for NZBA said the alliance is committed to supporting its remaining members, without commenting on possible EU defections. This moment calls for "long-term work that requires courage, consistency and true leadership to stay on track, even when faced with barriers to action,' the person said. BNP Paribas, the EU's biggest bank by assets, was questioning the value of continued NZBA membership as recently as June, according to another person familiar with the matter who asked not to be identified discussing private conversations. The bank is reluctant to create headlines by leaving, however, and back in June discussed postponing a formal decision until around the end of the year, the person said. A spokesperson for BNP declined to comment. Deutsche Bank, Germany's largest lender, is "monitoring current developments and will assess them,' according to a spokesperson, who added that the bank's own sustainability and net-zero targets remain unchanged. A spokesperson for Spain's Banco Santander said it's still committed to net zero but declined to say whether that includes remaining an NZBA member. A UniCredit spokesperson reiterated comments it made last month in connection with its earnings release, when the bank noted that it's an NZBA member with a net-zero transition plan to support clients in their low-carbon transition. Commerzbank closely monitors "market trends, regulatory developments and jurisdictions to ensure we can act appropriately if necessary,' Beate Schlosser, a spokeswoman for the bank said by email. Commerzbank's 2050 net-zero goal still holds, she said. Among reasons EU bank executives have given in the past for staying in NZBA was the access it gave them to other banks. But as defections continue, that access is no longer a selling point. Barclays, which left earlier this month not long after U.K. peer HSBC Holdings, said the string of walkouts means NZBA "no longer has the membership to support our transition.' Barclays' exit was promptly followed by UBS Group of Switzerland. Those departures, though all by banks in non-EU countries, have added to speculation that EU banks will be next, the person familiar with discussion inside NZBA said. The value of climate alliances such as NZBA remains a topic of debate. Lisa Sachs, head of Columbia University's Center on Sustainable Investment, said that a key weakness of frameworks like NZBA is the assumption that the finance industry can have a material impact on the low-carbon transition simply through setting targets to reduce emissions and committing to nudging portfolio companies to decarbonize. "Financial institutions are not the right institutions to fix market flaws or deliver societal transitions because their mandates are to maximize returns within existing market conditions,' she said. "And their assessments of risk are based on those parameters rather than on long-term societal risks.' NZBA still has 125 members across the globe representing a combined $41 trillion in assets, according to its website. Banks in Northern Europe are among the most outspoken in their support, with ING Groep and ABN Amro Bank in the Netherlands, Swedbank and SEB in Sweden and Danske Bank in Denmark all underscoring their backing via spokespeople. The alliance was created to encourage banks to throw their weight behind the net-zero transition. It initially required members to align their financing operations with the goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius. But after being virtually wiped off the North American map earlier this year, NZBA dropped that requirement and recast itself in more of a support role. It's a dramatic loss of stature for the alliance, which was created back in 2021 and feted by global bank executives at the COP26 climate summit in Scotland. Back then, when interest rates were at crisis lows and a global pandemic had created room for a green energy boom, net-zero finance looked like a reliable path to commercial success. That narrative was reinforced when U.S. President Joe Biden a year later signed the Inflation Reduction Act — the biggest piece of green legislation in U.S. history. Ironically, NZBA is hemorrhaging members just as fossil-fuel finance appears to be in decline on Wall Street. Policies designed to push up supply and drive down prices have pummeled the oil sector, and analysts at JPMorgan Chase have said this moment may mark the first decline in global upstream oil and gas development spending since 2020. In all, financing provided to oil, gas and coal projects by Wall Street's top six banks fell 25% to $73 billion this year through Aug. 1 from the same period in 2024, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. "A fundamental truth is that financial institutions follow markets — they don't create them,' Sachs of Columbia University said. Banks that have left NZBA in the U.K. have faced some pushback from clients and investors. HSBC lost a string of green customers, and the Church of England Pensions Board says it's now "engaging' with Barclays and HSBC on their NZBA exits. "As a shareholder we want to see banks to be genuinely committed to acting to address very real quantifiable financial risks like climate change,' says Laura Hillis, director of responsible investment at the pensions board. "It is very clear that some banks simply are not prepared to stay the course on their own commitments long term, which points to governance issues.' At the same time, banks leaving NZBA have said they'll continue to help clients decarbonize their businesses. UBS said on Aug. 7 its "commitment to sustainability remains unchanged and we recognize the importance of an orderly transition to a low-carbon economy.' Departing banks are also sticking with their sustainable finance goals. HSBC, for example, says it did $54.1 billion in deals it categorized as sustainable finance in the first half of 2025, which is up 19% from the same period a year ago. The bottom line remains that the decisions made by financial institutions "are driven by whether a specific investment is financeable today, given current market conditions, policies, and risk-return profiles,'' Columbia's Sachs said.
10 hours ago
Trump Releases Message on WWII Victory over Japan
Newsfrom Japan Washington, Aug. 15 (Jiji Press)--U.S. President Donald Trump has released a message regarding the 80th anniversary of the country's victory over Japan in World War II, stating that "the Japanese Empire was defeated" and the world was "spared from the oppressive clutches of destruction and tyranny." In the message, released Thursday, Trump praised American troops' "sacrifice and bravery" in "the deadliest war in human history" and pledged to maintain his administration's foreign policy of "peace through strength" to ensure that the United States remains "the greatest country on earth." Japan "has become our strongest ally in the Pacific" and hosts more than 50,000 American troops who stand guard against "new totalitarian regimes and their expansive ambitions," he said, underscoring the importance of U.S.-Japan relations. The message also noted that "peace is never promised, but is earned through sacrifice, defended with strength." In February, Trump issued a statement marking 80 years since the Battle of Iwo Jima, a fierce battle between Japan and the United States on the Pacific island of Ioto in the late stage of World War II. [Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]
Japan Times
11 hours ago
- Japan Times
Ukrainians see 'nothing' good from Trump-Putin meeting
Pavlo Nebroev stayed up until the middle of the night in Ukraine's northeastern city of Kharkiv to wait for a news conference between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin thousands of kilometers away. The U.S. and Russian leaders had met in Alaska to discuss Russia's more than three-year invasion of his country. But they made no breakthrough and seen from Kharkiv — heavily attacked by Russia throughout the war — the red-carpet meeting looked like a clear win for Putin. "I saw the results I expected. I think this is a great diplomatic victory for Putin," Nebroev, a 38-year-old theater manager, said. "He has completely legitimized himself." Trump inviting Putin to the U.S. ended the West's shunning of the Russian leader since the 2022 invasion. Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who was not invited, described the trip as Putin's "personal victory." Nebroev was not only outraged Ukraine was left out of the meeting, but also considered it a waste of time. "This was a useless meeting," he said, adding: "Issues concerning Ukraine should be resolved with Ukraine, with the participation of Ukrainians, the president." Trump later briefed European leaders and Zelenskyy, who announced he would meet the U.S. leader in Washington on Monday. The Trump-Putin meeting ended without a deal and Trump took no questions from reporters — highly unusual for the media-savvy U.S. president. Olya Donik, 36, said she was not surprised by the turn of events as she walked through a sunny park in Kharkiv with Nebroev. "It ended with nothing. Alright, let's continue living our lives here in Ukraine," she said. Hours after the talks, Kyiv said Russia attacked with 85 drones and a ballistic missile at night. "Whether there are talks or not, Kharkiv is being shelled almost every day. Kharkiv definitely doesn't feel any change," said Iryna Derkach, a 50-year-old photographer. She had stopped for the daily minute of silence held across the country to honor the victims of the Russian invasion. She was standing just in front of Derzhprom, a modernist structure considered to be one of the first Soviet skyscrapers, which was damaged by a strike last year. "We believe in victory, we know it will come, but God only knows who exactly will bring it about," she said. "We don't lose faith, we donate, we help as much as we can. We do our job and don't pay too much attention to what Trump is doing," she added.
