President Trump Wednesday held tense talks with Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy and European leaders forward of his essential Alaska summit with Vladimir Putin on Friday.
With nerves working excessive, Zelenskyy stated the talks went properly and Trump agreed that he hoped the summit with the Russian chief might result in a right away ceasefire.
The European allies, led by German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, and Ukraine worry Trump will get duped by Putin into making main concessions with out their settlement.
Trump has stated he needs to see whether or not Putin is severe about ending the warfare, now in its fourth yr, and described the summit as “a feeling-out meeting” the place he can assess the Russian chief’s intentions.
He pushed again in opposition to armchair critics who underestimate his deal-making prowess and insists he received’t be afraid to stroll away from the talks if he believes Putin isn’t severe.
“If I got Moscow and Leningrad free, as part of the deal with Russia, (they) would say that I made a bad deal,” Trump wrote on his social media website.
Russia’s President Vladimir Putin. (MIKHAIL SINITSYN/POOL/AFP by way of Getty Photographs)
Trump and Putin will meet on Friday at a U.S. Air Pressure base in Anchorage, Alaska. It’s the primary face-to-face assembly between Putin and an American president since he launched the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
Trump already unnerved allies in Europe in current months by making important unilateral concessions to Putin, like agreeing that Ukraine ought to by no means be part of NATO and would want to surrender some lands that Russia has seized in its invasion, together with the disputed Crimea area that the Kremlin seized in 2014.
Putin has stubbornly refused to reply in type and has snubbed Trump’s calls for for a ceasefire. It’s unclear why Trump believes the Russian chief could be prepared change course now.
European allies have pushed for Ukraine’s involvement in any peace talks, fearful that discussions that exclude Kyiv might in any other case favor Moscow.
Trump has stated that if Friday’s summit is a hit, it might be adopted by a gathering between Putin and Zelenskyy or a three-way assembly with him.
Russian forces on the bottom in Ukraine have made advances in current days across the metropolis of Pokrovsk within the japanese Donetsk area that Putin claims for Russia.
Dropping the city would hand Russia an necessary victory forward of the summit and will complicate Ukrainian efforts to carry the remainder of the province.
Initially Revealed: August 13, 2025 at 10:00 AM EDT
