Vladimir Putin, Donald Trump sit down to discuss fate of Ukraine as summit gets under way

RNZ News

a day ago

US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin meet during a US-Russia summit on Ukraine at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Anchorage, Alaska.
Photo:
AFP
By
Steve Holland
,
Andrew Osborn
and
Darya Korsunskaya
, Reuters
US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin have met face-to-face in Alaska in a high-stakes meeting that could determine whether a ceasefire can be reached in the deadliest war in Europe since World War II.
Ahead of the summit, Trump greeted the Russian leader on a red carpet on the tarmac at a US Air Force base.
The two shook hands warmly and touched each other on the arm before riding in Trump's limo to the summit site nearby.
The two leaders sat silently with their respective delegations seated to the side in their first meeting since 2019. They were seated in front of a blue backdrop that had the words, "Pursuing Peace" printed on it.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who was not invited to the talks, and his European allies fear Trump might sell out Ukraine by essentially freezing the conflict with Russia and recognising - if only informally - Russian control over one-fifth of Ukraine.
Earlier, Trump sought to assuage such concerns as he boarded Air Force One, saying he would let Ukraine decide on any possible territorial swaps. "I'm not here to negotiate for Ukraine, I'm here to get them at a table," he said.
Asked what would make the meeting a success, he told reporters: "I want to see a ceasefire rapidly ... I'm not going to be happy if it's not today ... I want the killing to stop."
Trump was joined in his meeting with Putin by Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Trump's special envoy to Russia, Steve Witkoff.
At a subsequent larger, bilateral meeting, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and chief of staff Susie Wiles will also join Trump, press secretary Karoline Leavitt said.
The Russian officials accompanying Putin in the talks with the US delegation will be foreign policy aide Yury Ushakov and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.
Trump hopes a truce in the 3-1/2-year-old war that Putin started will bring peace to the region as well as bolster his credentials as a global peacemaker worthy of the Nobel Peace Prize.
For Putin, the summit is already a big win that he can portray as evidence that years of Western attempts to isolate Russia have unravelled and that Moscow is retaking its rightful place at the top table of international diplomacy.
Trump, who once said he would end Russia's war in Ukraine within 24 hours, conceded on Thursday (local time) it had proven a tougher task than he had expected. He said if Friday's talks went well, quickly arranging a second, three-way summit with Zelensky would be even more important than his encounter with Putin.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said a three-way summit would be possible if the Alaska talks bore fruit, Interfax news agency reported.
Peskov also said Friday's talks could last six to seven hours. Zelensky said the summit should open the way for a "just peace" and three-way talks that included him, but added that Russia was continuing to wage war. A Russian ballistic missile earlier struck Ukraine's Dnipropetrovsk region, killing one person and wounding another.
"It's time to end the war, and the necessary steps must be taken by Russia. We are counting on America," Zelensky wrote on the Telegram messaging app.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has not been invited to the talks.
Photo:
RALF HIRSCHBERGER / AFP
Trump said before the summit that there was mutual respect between him and Putin.
"He is a smart guy, been doing it for a long time, but so have I ... We get along, there's a good respect level on both sides," Trump said of Putin. He also welcomed Putin's decision to bring businesspeople to Alaska.
"But they're not doing business until we get the war settled," he said, repeating a threat of "economically severe" consequences for Russia if the summit goes badly.
The United States has had internal discussions on using Russian nuclear-powered icebreaker vessels to support the development of gas and LNG projects in Alaska as one of the possible deals to aim for, three sources familiar with the matter told Reuters.
One source acquainted with Kremlin thinking said there were signs Moscow could be ready to strike a compromise on Ukraine, given that Putin understood Russia's economic vulnerability and costs of continuing the war.
Reuters has previously reported that Putin might be willing to freeze the conflict along the front lines, provided there was a legally binding pledge not to enlarge NATO eastwards and to lift some Western sanctions. NATO has said Ukraine's future is in the alliance.
Russia, whose war economy is showing strain, is vulnerable to further US sanctions - and Trump has threatened tariffs on buyers of Russian crude, primarily China and India.
"For Putin, economic problems are secondary to goals, but he understands our vulnerability and costs," the Russian source said.
Putin this week held out the prospect of something else he knows Trump wants - a new nuclear arms control accord to replace the last surviving one, which is due to expire in February.
The source familiar with Kremlin thinking said it looked as if the two sides had been able to find some common ground.
"Apparently, some terms will be agreed upon ... because Trump cannot be refused, and we are not in a position to refuse (due to sanctions pressure)," said the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the matter's sensitivity.
Putin has said he is open to a full ceasefire but that issues of verification must first be sorted out. One compromise could be a truce in the air war.
Zelensky has ruled out formally handing Moscow any territory and is also seeking a security guarantee backed by the United States. Ukrainians who spoke to Reuters in central Kyiv on Friday were not optimistic about the summit.
"Nothing good will happen there, because war is war, it will not end. The territories - we're not going to give anything to anyone," said Tetiana Harkavenko, a 65-year-old cleaner.
- Reuters