Kyiv said it was “counting on” US president Donald Trump to persuade Russian president Vladimir Putin to come to the negotiating table and end his invasion of Ukraine, as the two leaders flew to Alaska for a high-stakes summit.
Mr Trump and Mr Putin were scheduled to begin talks at a US military base in Anchorage at 11.30am local time (8.30pm Dublin time), then continue discussions over lunch with their delegations before addressing the media. The Kremlin said Mr Trump would meet Mr Putin at his plane when it landed, half an hour before talks were due to start.
Mr Trump has said he believes Mr Putin is ready to end his war on Ukraine and, if that is confirmed at the summit, he will contact Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy soon afterwards to agree a follow-up meeting at which a peace deal could be agreed.
“The key thing is that this meeting [in Alaska] should open up a real path toward a just peace and a substantive discussion between leaders in a trilateral format – Ukraine, the United States, and the Russian side,” Mr Zelenskiy said on Friday.
“It is time to end the war, and the necessary steps must be taken by Russia. We are counting on America. We are ready, as always, to work as productively as possible.”
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Mr Zelenskiy and a host of European leaders have presented a united front in recent days to insist that they must be involved in discussing crucial questions about Ukraine’s future and continental security.
Mr Trump has suggested that territorial concessions will be part of a peace deal, while acknowledging that Ukraine must have the final say on that.
“They’ll be discussed, but I’ve got to let Ukraine make that decision, and I think they’ll make a proper decision, but I’m not here to negotiate for Ukraine. I’m here to get them at a table,” Mr Trump said of territorial issues as he flew to Alaska.
“Look, Vladimir Putin wanted to take all of Ukraine. If I wasn’t president, he would, right now, be taking all of Ukraine, but he’s not going to do it,” he added.
Mr Trump also repeated a threat that Russia would face “very severe” economic consequences if it rejected peace efforts, and said US-Russia business co-operation would be impossible if Mr Putin continued his war on Ukraine.
“I noticed he’s bringing a lot of business people from Russia, and that’s good. I like that because they want to do business, but they’re not doing business until we get the war stopped.”
Kyiv and its European allies say any peace deal would be worthless without powerful security guarantees for Ukraine that would prevent another Russian invasion.
Ukraine wants Nato membership but Mr Trump has ruled that out. Moscow is demanding a permanent ban on the country every joining Nato, and the permanent transfer of five Ukrainian regions to the Russian Federation.
When asked if the US could provide such security guarantees, Mr Trump said: “Maybe, along with Europe and other countries. Not in the form of Nato, because... there are certain things that aren’t going to happen. But, yeah, along with Europe, there’s a possibility of that.”
North Korea’s media said on Friday that its leader Kim Jong-un had received a letter from Mr Putin praising their country’s friendship and the “heroic” troops that Pyongyang has sent to help Russia fight Ukraine.
Mr Trump said he had a “wonderful talk” with Belarusian president Alexander Lukashenko, another close Putin ally. He described the veteran dictator as “highly respected” and said they had discussed the possible release of 1,300 prisoners – probably a reference to the many political prisoners held by the authoritarian regime in Minsk.
