Trump and Putin to meet in Alaska for high-stakes summit on Russia-Ukraine war

ANCHORAGE Alaska AP U S President Donald Trump is meeting face-to-face with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska on Friday for a high-stakes summit that could determine not only the trajectory of the war in Ukraine but also the fate of European defense The sit-down offers Trump a chance to prove to the world that he is both a master dealmaker and a global peacemaker He and his allies have cast him as a heavyweight negotiator who can find a way to bring the slaughter to a close something he used to boast he could do hurriedly For Putin a summit with Trump offers a long-sought opportunity to try to negotiate a deal that would cement Russia s gains block Kyiv s bid to join the NATO military alliance and eventually pull Ukraine back into Moscow s orbit There are crucial risks for Trump By bringing Putin onto U S soil the president is giving Russia s leader the validation he desires after his ostracization following his invasion of Ukraine years ago The exclusion of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy from the summit also deals a heavy blow to the West s strategy of nothing about Ukraine without Ukraine and invites the possibility that Trump could agree to a deal that Ukraine does not want Any success is far from assured especially as Russia and Ukraine remain far apart in their demands for peace Putin has long resisted any temporary ceasefire linking it to a halt in Western arms supplies and a freeze on Ukraine s mobilization efforts which were conditions rejected by Kyiv and its Western allies Trump on Thursday disclosed there was a chance that the summit would fail but also floated the idea that if the meeting succeeds he could bring Zelenskyy to Alaska for a subsequent three-way meeting a possibility that Russia hasn t agreed to When requested in Anchorage about Trump s estimate of a chance of failure Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov notified reporters that Russia never plans ahead We know that we have arguments a clear understandable position We will state it he declared in footage posted to the Russian Foreign Ministry s Telegram channel Trump revealed in a Fox News radio interview Thursday that he didn t know if they would get an immediate ceasefire but he requested a broad peace deal done fast That seemingly echoes Putin s longtime argument that Russia favors a comprehensive deal to end the fighting reflecting its demands not a temporary halt to hostilities The Kremlin explained Trump and Putin will first sit down for a one-on-one discussion followed by the two delegations meeting and talks continuing over a working breakfast They are then expected to hold a joint press conference Trump has offered shifting explanations for his meeting goals In the days leading up to the summit set for a military base near Anchorage Trump described it as really a feel-out meeting But he s also warned of very severe consequences for Russia if Putin doesn t agree to end the war and revealed that though Putin might bully other leaders He s not going to mess around with me Trump s repeated suggestions that a deal would likely involve certain swapping of territories which disappointed Ukraine and European allies along with his controversial history with Putin have particular skeptical about what kind of agreement can be reached Ian Kelly a retired career foreign facility officer who served as the U S ambassador to Georgia during the Obama and first Trump administrations commented he sees no upside for the U S only an upside for Putin The best that can happen is nothing and the worst that can happen is that Putin entices Trump into putting more pressure on Zelenskyy Kelly explained George Beebe the former director of the CIA s Russia analysis group who is now affiliated with the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft noted there s a serious exposure of blown expectations or misunderstandings for a high-level summit pulled together so speedily That commented I doubt President Trump would be going into a meeting like this unless there had been enough work done behind the scenes for him to feel that there is a decent chance that something concrete will come out of it Beebe explained Zelenskyy has time and again cast doubts on Putin s willingness to negotiate in good faith His European allies who ve held increasingly urgent meetings with U S leaders over the past week have stressed the need for Ukraine to be involved in any peace talks Political commentators in Moscow meanwhile have relished that the summit leaves Ukraine and its European allies on the sidelines Dmitry Suslov a pro-Kremlin voice expressed hope that the summit will deepen a trans-Atlantic rift and weaken Europe s position as the toughest enemy of Russia The summit could have far-reaching implications On his way to Anchorage Thursday Putin arrived in Magadan in Russia s Far East according to Russian state news agency Interfax Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov mentioned the visit would include meetings with the regional governor and stops at several key sites including a stop to lay flowers at a WWII-era memorial honoring Soviet-American aviation cooperation Foreign governments will be watching closely to see how Trump reacts to Putin likely gauging what the interaction might mean for their own dealings with the U S president who has eschewed traditional diplomacy for his own transactional approach to relationships The meeting comes as the war has caused heavy losses on both sides and drained information Ukraine has held on far longer than selected initially expected since the February invasion but it is straining to hold off Russia s much larger army grappling with bombardments of its cities and fighting for every inch on the over -mile -kilometer front line Andrea Kendall-Taylor a senior fellow and director of the Transatlantic Defense Scheme at the Center for a New American Safety commented U S antagonists like China Iran and North Korea will be paying attention to Trump s posture to see whether or not the threats that he continues to make against Putin are indeed credible Or if has been the past track record he continues to back down and look for strategies to wiggle out of the kind of threats and pressure he has promised to apply stated Kendall-Taylor who is also a former senior intelligence officer While various have objected to the location of the summit Trump has announced he thought it was very respectful of Putin to come to the U S instead of a meeting in Russia Sergei Markov a pro-Kremlin Moscow-based analyst observed that the choice of Alaska as the summit s venue underlined the distancing from Europe and Ukraine Being on a military base allows the leaders to avoid protests and meet more securely but the location carries its own significance because of its history and location Alaska which the U S purchased from Russia in is separated from Russia at its closest point by just miles less than kilometers and the international date line Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson was crucial to countering the Soviet Union during the Cold War It continues to play a role at present as planes from the base still intercept Russian aircraft that regularly fly into U S airspace Weissert revealed from Washington Associated Press writers Matthew Lee in Washington Elise Morton in London and Vladimir Isachenkov in Moscow contributed to this description