Trump Says Putin "Ready To Make A Deal" Ahead Of Alaska Summit: Top Points
Ahead of his meeting with Vladimir Putin in Alaska, US President Donald Trump said he believes his Russian counterpart is ready to make a deal to end the war in Ukraine.
Here Are Top Points On Trump-Putin's Alaska Summit
Putin is set to fly to Alaska on Friday at the invitation of Trump in his first visit to the United States since he ordered the 2022 invasion of Ukraine that has killed tens of thousands of people. This is Putin and Trump's first face-to-face meeting in seven years.
On the eve of the high-stakes summit on Friday (local time), the American leader said he would not be intimidated by the Russian President and promised not to finalise any deal with Putin before a three-way meeting also including Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
Talking to reporters at the White House, Trump said, "I am president, and he's not going to mess around with me...I'll know within the first two minutes, three minutes, four minutes or five minutes... whether or not we're going to have a good meeting or a bad meeting."
"And if it's a bad meeting, it'll end very quickly, and if it's a good meeting, we're going to end up getting peace in the pretty near future," said Trump, who gave the summit 25 per cent chances of failure.
The American said that he believes Putin is heading to Anchorage in Alaska, wanting to make a deal to end the war in Ukraine. "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 - I'm going to know very quickly," Trump said.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was not invited to the Alaska summit, which he has denounced as a reward to Putin, and has refused Trump's calls to surrender territory.
Trump promised not to finalise any deal with Putin and said he hoped to hold a three-way summit with Zelensky, possibly immediately afterwards in Alaska. He also said his goal is to move toward a trilateral meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, suggesting "three different locations" are on the table - including the possibility of "staying in Alaska".
"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," Trump told Fox News Radio.
He warned that Russia would face "very severe consequences" if Putin refused to agree to a ceasefire in the ongoing conflict with Ukraine.
At the start of his second term, Trump was conciliatory toward Putin, for whom he has long shown admiration. But as Putin remained intransigent and rejected an unconditional truce proposed by Trump, the Republican leader has expressed increasing exasperation with the Russian leader, criticising him for his unbudging stance on US-led peace efforts and for prolonging the war.
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