- Trump says he will know “within the first few minutes” of meeting Putin if a ceasefire is possible.
Femi Ashekun/
Russian President Vladimir Putin has lauded what he called Donald Trump’s “energetic and sincere efforts” to bring an end to the war in Ukraine, setting the tone for a high-stakes summit in Alaska that has already stirred unease among Kyiv and its European allies.
Speaking to senior Kremlin officials yesterday, Putin said the White House was making genuine attempts to “end the conflict and the crisis through agreements that would represent the interest of all sides.”
He suggested that a potential deal could “create long-term conditions for peace between our countries, in Europe, and in the world,” especially if talks progressed to include new agreements on strategic arms control.
The Alaska meeting — their first one-on-one encounter since 2019 — comes as Trump seeks to position himself as a peacemaker.
In a Fox News Radio interview, the U.S. president tempered expectations, saying an immediate ceasefire might not emerge from this first round of talks. Still, he insisted that Putin was open to a deal and promised to decide afterward whether Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy should join a follow-up session.
“I’ll know within the first few minutes if this can work,” Trump told reporters from the Oval Office. “If it’s a bad meeting, it’ll end pretty quickly.”
He described today’s talks as a way to “set the table” for a potentially broader meeting with Zelenskyy and European allies — perhaps also in Alaska.
Zelenskyy and several European leaders have spent the past week lobbying Washington to avoid any agreement that might see Ukrainian territory ceded to Russia.
On a call with European heads of state Wednesday, Trump reassured them he would not strike a deal over Kyiv’s head.
The Kremlin confirmed that Putin and Trump will meet privately at Elmendorf-Richardson military base before expanding discussions to delegations of five officials per side. Topics will range from Ukraine to global security and possible U.S.–Russia economic cooperation.
Trump had threatened tougher sanctions if Putin missed last week’s ceasefire deadline, but his focus shifted to diplomacy after special envoy Steve Witkoff’s visit to Moscow. Both sides claimed progress from that trip, though neither offered specifics.
For Putin, the war remains tied to what he calls its “root causes” — demands that NATO halt its eastward expansion and that Ukraine’s independence be fundamentally curtailed.
Arms control, once a stabilising pillar of U.S.–Russia relations, has nearly collapsed since Moscow suspended participation in the New START treaty in 2023.
The Russian delegation in Alaska includes key economic and security figures: Finance Minister Anton Siluanov, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, Defence Minister Andrei Belousov, and sovereign wealth fund chief Kirill Dmitriev. Moscow has hinted at “lucrative” joint ventures in energy and Arctic exploration if ties improve.
Trump has kept Biden-era sanctions in place but has largely avoided new measures, seeing their removal as a possible bargaining chip. U.S. officials acknowledge that lifting sanctions could be one of Moscow’s incentives to end the fighting.
Still, Trump told European leaders there would be “very severe consequences” if Putin failed to agree to end the war. Three European officials say he also offered security guarantees for a postwar peacekeeping force in Ukraine — though outside of the NATO framework — aligning with proposals backed by the UK and France.
Political analysts warn that Putin is attempting to detach the Ukraine issue from broader U.S.–Russia relations, hoping to negotiate the war’s end on Moscow’s terms and then pivot to a renewed global partnership.
Alexandra Prokopenko, a former Russian central bank official, put it bluntly: “Let’s get over Ukraine, on our terms, and let’s rule the fate of the world together and profitably.
”Meanwhile, Zelenskyy met UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer in London yesterday, part of an urgent European push to keep Ukraine’s voice central to any peace talks.
As the Alaska summit opens, the gap between Kyiv’s fears and Washington’s ambitions may prove as significant as the distance between the negotiating tables.
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