Trump-Putin summit latest: Delegations head to Alaska after Trump says Putin ‘will not mess me around’ on Ukraine – UK Times

Speaking on the eve of today’s summit with Vladimir Putin, Donald Trump said that he thought the Russian leader would do a deal on Ukraine – but the US president has blown hot and cold on the chances of a breakthrough in recent days.

Mr Trump and Mr Putin hold talks in Alaska today, where the US president hopes to seal a ceasefire agreement on Ukraine. The meeting at a Cold War-era air force base in Alaska comes amid Ukrainian and European fears that Trump might sell Kyiv out.

A source close to the Kremlin told Reuters it looked as if the two sides had been able to find some unspecified common ground beforehand.

“Apparently, some terms will be agreed upon tomorrow (Friday) because Trump cannot be refused, and we are not in a position to refuse (due to sanctions pressure),” said the source.

Mr Putin has set stringent conditions for a full ceasefire, but one compromise could be a phased truce in the air war, although both sides have accused the other of flouting a previous accord.

Analysts say Mr Putin could try to look like he’s giving Mr Trump what he wants while remaining free to escalate in Ukraine if he wants to.

“If they (the Russians) are able to put a deal on the table that creates some kind of a ceasefire but that leaves Russia in control of those escalatory dynamics, does not create any kind of genuine deterrence on the ground or in the skies over Ukraine… that would be a wonderful outcome from Putin’s perspective,” said Sam Greene, director of Democratic Resilience at the Center for European Policy Analysis.

US president Donald Trump’s meeting with Russian president Vladimir Putin will take place at 3pm ET (1900 GMT) in Anchorage, Alaska, the White House said in a press schedule statement.

Mr Trump will depart the White House at 6.45am ET (1045 GMT) and leave Anchorage at 5.45pm Alaska Time the same day. He is scheduled to return to the White House early Saturday morning.

US prresident Donald Trump yesterday said there was only a 25 per cent chance that the summit with Russian leader Vladimir Putin would fail.

The US president will meet his Russian counterpart today at the Alaska summit for the first time since 2018.

Mr Trump said if the meeting with Mr Putin succeeds, he could bring Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky to Alaska for a subsequent, three-way meeting.

In a radio interview with Fox News, Mr Trump also said he might be willing to stay in Alaska longer, depending on what happens with Mr Putin.

A Russian oil refinery was set ablaze in an overnight drone attack in Samara Oblast, according to reports.

There was no official confirmation whether the drone attack was launched by Ukraine. Local residents said they heard at least ten explosions around 4am local time, UNN reported.

The drone struck an oil refinery in Syzran, the third-largest city in Samara Oblast, located about 811km from the Ukrainian border.

There will be those who take issue with Zelensky’s swanning around foreign parts at such a time. There will also be those – some, if not many of them, in Russia – who hope that the coming days will, one way or another, spell the end of Zelensky’s power.

For all the missteps and failings on the part of his government in Kyiv, Zelensky is likely to be the person who has to try to shepherd Ukraine from war into peace, and he needs to be supported as perhaps the only one who can.

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In his view, this Friday’s summit is about his grand re-entry onto the international stage and a complex psychological interplay with a US leader who is also fixated on what a “win” over ending (or rather stalling) the war in Ukraine would do for his personal brand.

The dynamics of a summit that has already sidelined Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky – and reduced European leaders to holding their own meeting in Berlin – will be driven by the needs of two men with immense but fragile egos.

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The future of Ukraine’s industrial heartland in the east will almost certainly play a key role in talks between Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump as they prepare to meet in Alaska on Friday.

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European officials insisted to CNN that US President Trump come prepared to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin while the pair discuss Ukraine while the country’s president Volodymyr Zelensky is not present.

“He must be prepared because Putin is very, very well prepared,” one European official told the network about Friday’s meeting.

There is a “vulnerability” for Trump to be alone in the room with Putin because the Russian president is “an excellent player,” the official added.

Another official acknowledged the US President has been tougher on Russia recently. On Thursday, for example, Mr Trump threatened “severe consequences” if Mr Putin doesn’t agree to peace in Ukraine.

Still, this official warned: “It seems Trump doesn’t really believe in the possibility of Ukrainian success.”

One day before the two world leaders were scheduled to meet, US President Donald Trump told reporters Thursday that Russian President Vladimir Putin is “not going to mess around” with him.

“I am president, and he’s not going to mess around with me,” he said during a press conference at the White House.

“I’ll know within the first two minutes, three minutes, four minutes or five minutes… whether or not we’re going to have a good meeting or a bad meeting. And if it’s a bad meeting, it’ll end very quickly, and if it’s a good meeting, we’re going to end up getting peace in the pretty near future.”

The US president remained cautiously optimistic that the leaders of Russia and Ukraine “will make peace.”

“We’re going to see what happens,” he said. “And, I think President Putin will make peace. I think President Zelensky will make peace. We’ll see if they can get along and if they can, it’ll be great.”

Meanwhile, earlier in the day on Thursday, Mr Putin praised Mr Trump for making “quite an energetic and sincere effort, in my opinion, to stop hostilities, to stop the crisis and to reach an agreement that is of interest to all those involved in this conflict.”