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Donald Trump has said he believes Vladimir Putin is ready to make a deal on the war in Ukraine as the two leaders prepare for their summit in Alaska on Friday, but his suggestion the Russian leader and Volodymyr Zelenskyy could \u201cdivvy things up\u201d may alarm some in Kyiv.<\/p>\n
The US president implied there was a 75% chance of the Alaska meeting succeeding, and that the threat of economic sanctions may have made Putin more willing to seek an end to the war.<\/p>\n
Trump insisted that he would not let Putin get the better of him in Friday\u2019s meeting, telling reporters: \u201cI am president, and he\u2019s not going to mess around with me.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ll know within the first two minutes, three minutes, four minutes or five minutes \u2026 whether or not we\u2019re going to have a good meeting or a bad meeting.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd if it\u2019s a bad meeting, it\u2019ll end very quickly, and if it\u2019s a good meeting, we\u2019re going to end up getting peace in the pretty near future,\u201d said Trump.<\/p>\n
He also said a second meeting \u2013 not yet confirmed \u2013 between him, Putin and Zelenskyy would be the more decisive.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe second meeting is going to be very, very important, because that\u2019s going to be a meeting where they make a deal. And I don\u2019t want to use the word \u2018divvy\u2019 things up, but you know, to a certain extent, it\u2019s not a bad term, OK?\u201d Trump told Fox News Radio.<\/p>\n
He was referring to the possibility that Zelenskyy will have to accept \u201cland swaps\u201d \u2013 in practice the handing over of Ukrainian territory to Russia, potentially including some not captured by Moscow.<\/p>\n
Later on Thursday, Trump suggested that any second, trilateral meeting could happen quickly \u2013 and possibly take place in Alaska.<\/p>\n
\u201cTomorrow, all I want to do is set the table for the next meeting, which should happen shortly,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019d like to see it actually happen, maybe in Alaska.\u201d<\/p>\n
Any such meeting would be a concession by Putin since he refuses to recognise Zelenskyy as the legitimate leader of Ukraine.<\/p>\n
Trump conceded he was unsure whether an immediate ceasefire could be achieved, but expressed interest in brokering a peace agreement. On Putin, he said: \u201cI believe now, he\u2019s convinced that he\u2019s going to make a deal. I think he\u2019s going to, and we\u2019re going to find out.\u201d<\/p>\n
Zelenskyy will face a difficult choice if Putin rejects Ukraine\u2019s call for a full 30-day ceasefire and offers only a partial break in the fighting, particularly if Trump thinks a three-way meeting should still go ahead.<\/p>\n
The Ukrainian president spent much of Thursday in London discussing Wednesday\u2019s video call between European leaders and Trump with the UK prime minister, Keir Starmer. European leaders were largely relieved with the way the conversation went, but know Trump is unpredictable and prone to acting on instinct, rather than sticking to a script.<\/p>\n
<\/span>Keir Starmer and Volodymyr Zelenskyy meet at 10 Downing Street. <\/span> Photograph: Simon Dawson\/No 10 Downing Street<\/p>\n The US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, said changes on the battlefield could make peace harder. \u201cTo achieve a peace, I think we all recognise that there\u2019ll have to be some conversation about security guarantees,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Trump has rejected offering such guarantees before, but it is possible European security guarantees could be agreed. Rubio said he believed Trump had spoken by phone to Putin four times and \u201cfelt it was important to now speak to him in person and look him in the eye and figure out what was possible and what isn\u2019t\u201d.<\/p>\n Starmer and Zelenskyy met in Downing Street for breakfast on Thursday and hailed \u201ca visible chance for peace\u201d as long as Putin proved he was serious about ending the war.<\/p>\n European leaders emerged from Wednesday\u2019s meeting reassured that Trump was going into his summit focused on extracting Putin\u2019s commitment to a durable ceasefire and was not seeking to negotiate over Ukraine\u2019s head.<\/p>\n The plan for Trump and Putin to hold a joint press conference after their talks suggests the White House is optimistic the summit will bring about a breakthrough. Moscow is determined that the summit should not just focus on Ukraine but also agree steps to restart US-Russian economic cooperation.<\/p>\n skip past newsletter promotion<\/p>\n Our morning email breaks down the key stories of the day, telling you what\u2019s happening and why it matters<\/p>\n Privacy Notice: <\/strong>Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.<\/span><\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n In a brief summary of the Downing Street meeting, British officials said Zelenskyy and Starmer expressed cautious optimism about a truce \u201cas long as Putin takes action to prove he is serious\u201d about peace. In a separate statement, Zelenskyy said there had been discussions about the security guarantees required to make any deal \u201ctruly durable if the United States succeeds in pressing Russia to stop the killing\u201d.<\/p>\n On Wednesday Starmer co-chaired a virtual meeting of the \u201ccoalition of the willing\u201d \u2013 a European-led effort to send a peacekeeping force to Ukraine to enforce any deal \u2013 where he said there was a \u201cviable\u201d chance of a truce.<\/p>\n On Thursday the prime minister gave Zelenskyy a bear hug in the street outside the door to No 10 in a symbol of continuing British solidarity with the Ukrainian cause. Similar public displays of solidarity followed the disastrous February meeting between Trump and Zelenskyy, when the two leaders quarrelled in front of the cameras in the White House.<\/p>\n <\/span>Zelenskyy and Starmer embrace in Downing Street.<\/span> Photograph: James Veysey\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n Further sanctions could be imposed on Russia should the Kremlin fail to engage, and Starmer said the UK was already working on its next package of measures targeting Moscow.<\/p>\n Trump has frequently said he will know if he can achieve peace in Ukraine only by meeting Putin personally. He sets great faith in his personal relationship with the Russian leader, but on Wednesday he played down expectations of what he could do to persuade Putin to relent. At the same time he warned there would be \u201cvery severe consequences\u201d for Russia if Putin did not agree to a ceasefire, a veiled threat to increase US sanctions on Russian oil exports.<\/p>\n He has so far held off from imposing such economic pressure on Russia, but by the end of the month the US is due to impose additional tariffs on Indian imports into the US as a punishment for India continuing to buy Russian oil.<\/p>\n The UK would like to see the US consider other, more targeted sanctions, either on the so-called shadow fleet of Russian oil tankers or on refineries that use Russian oil. But Moscow briefed that the Alaska summit, far from leading to extra economic pressure on the Russian economy, would instead include discussion and agreements on new US-Russian economic cooperation, a step that would relieve the pressure on Russian state finances.<\/p>\n Some European leaders took heart from the detailed grasp of the issues shown on the call by the US vice-president, JD Vance, and by hints that Trump could be willing to contribute US assets to a European-led security guarantee for Ukraine in the event of a peace agreement.<\/p>\n The Alaska summit, due to start at 11.30am local time (2030 BST), will include a one-to-one meeting between Trump and Putin, with interpreters, then a wider meeting.<\/p>\n The Russian delegation will include the foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov; the defence minister, Andrei Belousov; the finance minister, Anton Siluanov; the head of the Russian sovereign wealth fund, Kirill Dmitriev; and Putin\u2019s foreign policy adviser Yuri Ushakov.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Donald Trump has said he believes Vladimir Putin is ready to make a deal on the war in Ukraine as the two leaders prepare for their summit in Alaska on Friday, but his suggestion the Russian leader and Volodymyr Zelenskyy could \u201cdivvy things up\u201d may alarm some in Kyiv. The US president implied there was<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15853,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[8447,696,527,4737,2591,81,674],"class_list":{"0":"post-15852","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-politics","8":"tag-alaska","9":"tag-deal","10":"tag-putin","11":"tag-ready","12":"tag-summit","13":"tag-trump","14":"tag-ukraine"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15852","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15852"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15852\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/15853"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15852"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15852"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15852"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}