President Donald Trump, soon on his way to meet President Vladimir Putin in Alaska, has swung this week from optimism that the Russian leader is “going to make a deal” to suggesting it’s just a preliminary meeting.
And while White House officials have resisted setting red lines and have tried to temper expectations of a breakthrough, Trump has repeatedly made clear his marker of success: a second meeting.
The second meeting, which the president hopes occurs soon after the first, would include Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and, as Trump envisions it, allow for a negotiated peace, possibly including land swaps and security guarantees for Ukraine.
“The second meeting is going to be very, very important, because that’s going to be a meeting where they make a deal,” Trump said Thursday.
Anything short of that, the president warned, could mean “severe consequences” for Russia.
Still, Russia and Ukraine are nowhere close to a deal. Putin has shifted his country’s economy onto a wartime footing and escalated his attacks over the last several months. And he has signaled that it would take Ukraine surrendering huge swaths of land, including territory the Russian army has not conquered for him to end the war — a proposal Zelenskyy has rejected.
The Ukrainian president, meanwhile, has asserted that Putin’s overtures to Trump aren’t serious and that his country’s intelligence shows Russia planning for the war to continue into next year. He and European allies have leaned on Trump to ratchet up the economic pressure on Putin for eschewing diplomacy in favor of fighting on.
But Trump, who is now more aligned with Europe and Ukraine due to frustrations with Putin, is telling a different story. He’s betting again on his own ability to bend — or pressure — these two leaders and a complex geopolitical reality to his own, determined will.
“We’re going to see what happens,” Trump said. “And I think President Putin will make peace. I think President Zelenskyy will make peace. We’ll see if they can get along, and if they can, it’ll be great.”
European allies, even after making inroads with the president, will be watching nervously, despite public assurances that they and Trump are aligned. And if Putin can convince Trump that he’s serious about peace, pressure could mount on Zelenskyy to engage despite his conviction that Russia remains intent on annexing more, if not all, of Ukraine.
Putin “will try to create an impression that they are participating in the negotiations” to avoid Trump’s imposition of secondary sanctions, which could damage Russia’s economy, said Olga Tokariuk, a Ukraine expert at the Center for European Policy Analysis. “But there are really no indications that I see of Russia actually willing to put an end to the war in Ukraine.”
After speaking with Trump on Wednesday, several European leaders expressed confidence that the president won’t let Putin off the hook and that he planned to push for a ceasefire on the front end of peace talks, a priority for Ukraine and NATO allies.
European diplomats were particularly heartened by Vice President JD Vance’s reassurances, a welcome change after he berated Zelenskyy in the Oval Office.
“People were pretty impressed by Vance, who is looking for solutions while being clear that Putin is the bad guy here,” said a European official.
European leaders also insisted following their conversation with Trump that Friday’s meeting with Putin would not include any details about the parameters of an eventual deal, including territorial concessions by Ukraine, whose president will not be in Alaska.
But Trump, speaking on Thursday, suggested that, if he deems Putin to be serious about peace, he could urge Zelenskyy to meet them in Anchorage for a second summit to hammer out the actual deal.
“I’d like to see it happen, actually, in Alaska where we just stay because it’s easier,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office Thursday afternoon.
And hours earlier during an appearance on Brian Kilmeade’s radio show, Trump was explicit about his vision for an almost immediate second summit where Zelenskyy and Putin would negotiate the details. “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, OK? But there will be a give and take as to boundaries, lands, etc., etc.” Trump said.
But in a telling mark of Trump’s own uncertainty, the president who routinely promises total victory, acknowledged that a second meeting was no sure thing.
“There is a 25 percent chance this meeting will not be a successful meeting,” he told Kilmeade.
