The stakes are high for Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin when the pair meet in Alaska on Friday to discuss ending the war in Ukraine.
The US President and his Russian counterpart will sit down at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in the largest US state – a site chosen due to its close proximity to Russia.
Addressing reporters at the White House last week, Trump suggested an agreement would involve some exchange of land between Ukraine and Russia.
‘There’ll be some swapping of territories to the betterment of both,’ the Republican president said.
But Volodymyr Zelensky has pushed against that, saying Ukrainians ‘will not gift their land to the occupiers’.
In a video address to the nation posted on his Telegram channel on Saturday, the Ukrainian President said any decisions without Ukraine would be decisions against peace.
He added: ‘They will not bring anything. These are dead decisions. They will never work.’
When Trump revealed his plans for a meeting with Putin last week, he also floated a potential second meeting where Zelensky would join them.
Following a virtual chat with European and Nato leaders yesterday afternoon, the US President again suggested the trilateral could take place soon after the Alaska summit.
Trump and Putin would use their initial tete-a-tete to ‘find out where we are and what we’re doing’, he said, adding: ‘We’ll have a quick second meeting between President Putin and President Zelensky and myself, if they’d like to have me there.’
What time are Trump and Putin meeting?
The Kremlin has confirmed additional details of the summit between the two leaders on Friday.
Presidential aide Yuri Ushakov said they will initially meet one-on-one with interpreters at 11.30am local time, which is 8.30pm UK time.
Afterwards, five additional members from each delegation will join Trump and Putin.
The pair will then hold a joint press conference.
In the build-up to the meeting, European leaders have been trying their best to plant thoughts in Trump’s head.
A virtual chat on Wednesday was widely praised, including by German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, French President Emmanuel Macron and Trump himself – who described it as a ‘ten’.
Today, Zelensky paid a quick visit to Downing Street for a pre-summit meeting in the garden with Keir Starmer.
Why is Trump meeting with Putin?
Donald Trump notoriously promised he would be able to bring the war between Russia and Ukraine to an end on day one after being re-elected.
Of course, that didn’t happen – and after some success in bringing violence to a stop between Israel and Iran as well as other countries, he may see this conflict as something like a white whale.
Negotiations between US and Russian officials so far this year have failed to bring the bloodshed in Ukraine to an end.
Trump is a big believer in his deal-making talents, and he thinks getting himself into a room with Putin may present the best shot at nailing down a result.
The meeting will also touch on co-operation and trade between the US and Russia, so the two presidents may be hoping for broader results.
What will happen after the meeting?
The likelihood of the trilateral taking place may depend heavily on the outcome of the Friday bilateral.
Trump has said there will be ‘very serious consequences’ if Russia does not agree to a ceasefire, though he did not specify what they were.
If the long-awaited three-way meeting does take place, one of the leaders will come to the table at a significant disadvantage, according to British Foreign Policy Group think tank director Evie Aspinall.
Aspinall said Trump is ‘feeling relatively confident about the situation’ after weeks of trumpeting his role in stopping conflicts between Israel and Iran, India and Pakistan, and several other regions around the world.
She told Metro: ‘I think in his mind, he’s managed to bring Putin to the table, and he’s going to use it as an opportunity to really cement himself as this deal maker and as someone that is able to secure peace in the world.
‘And so what he wants, really, is a ceasefire. He wants an end to the war in Ukraine. His intent is fairly straightforward. He wants to see the war end, and he wants to be seen as the man that makes that possible.’
Ultimately, the summit is ‘as much as anything, an image thing’ for Trump, she argued, as it would also mean disentangling the US from a global conflict.
Putin, meanwhile, is ‘making huge progress militarily’ in Ukraine and is able to use the meeting to secure two big objectives – demonstrating to Trump he is ‘reasonable’ enough to negotiate, and buying time on the battlefield.
Aspinall said: ‘Putin will be building up his resources so that he is in the best position possible for when a ceasefire or full negotiation then happens.
‘He wants to use this as an opportunity to show that he’s on Trump’s side.’
The US President may have appeared to sharpen his stance against his Russian counterpart in recent weeks, notably hitting India with punitive tariffs for buying Russia’s oil.
But Aspinall explained it’s likely a shrewd move from Putin to sit down for talks at this point in time.
She said: ‘I think Putin is playing quite well for the Russians. By coming to negotiating table, he’s managed to get Trump to wait, step back from the threats of sanctions for now.
‘What he’ll be hoping is that he presents himself as reasonable in these meetings, and then Trump doesn’t go on with the sanctions that are supposed to hit imminently.’
For Zelensky, the summit will be much more of a high-wire act with far more risks.
Aspinall said: ‘I think there is possible progress. The problem with the progress is it will be on Putin’s terms, rather than Zelensky’s terms.
‘I think there is a world in which you see Trump and Putin come out saying, “This is a deal that would work,” and then you have Europe and Ukraine pushing back very heavily on that, and a negotiation over that deal.’
The Ukrainian President’s best bet might be to challenge Putin’s position as the ‘reasonable actor’ in the negotiations by pressing hard on the Russian leader’s red lines – such as agreeing to Ukraine joining Nato.
This could ‘push Putin into a corner’, suggested Aspinall, which might be Zelensky’s best chance at leverage.
But she was clear Ukraine has more to lose in a likely deal.
Russia could be flexible on territory swaps, and offer them in exchange for Putin’s bigger prizes: blocking Ukrainian Nato membership, shrinking the size of its military, and forcing elections that would ‘inevitably be biased by Russian disinformation’.
Aspinall said: ‘the Territory part is the part that they will probably be softer on, as a way for Trump to come out and say, we’re not giving Putin everything. We’ve got the territory back, for example.
‘But Putin can sell it as you know, we no longer have an aggressor on our doorstep. We have a supporter and ally of Russia on our doorstep.’
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