United States President Donald Trump said he wanted to see a ceasefire \u201ctoday\u201d as he headed to Alaska on Friday for a summit with Russia\u2019s Vladimir Putin to help end the deadliest war in Europe since World War Two.<\/p>\n
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who was not invited to the talks, and his European allies fear Trump might sell out Ukraine by essentially freezing the conflict and recognising \u2014 if only informally \u2014 Russian control over one fifth of Ukraine.<\/p>\n
Trump sought to assuage such concerns as he boarded Air Force One, saying he would let Ukraine decide on any possible territorial swaps. \u201cI\u2019m not here to negotiate for Ukraine, I\u2019m here to get them to a table,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Asked what would make the meeting a success, he told reporters: \u201cI want to see a ceasefire rapidly\u2026 I\u2019m not going to be happy if it\u2019s not today\u2026 I want the killing to stop.\u201d<\/p>\n
The US and Russian presidents are due to meet at a Cold War-era air force base in Alaska\u2019s largest city at around 11am (12am PKT) for their first face-to-face talks since Trump returned to the White House.<\/p>\n
Trump hopes a truce in the 3-1\/2-year-old war will bolster his credentials as a global peacemaker worthy of the Nobel Peace Prize.<\/p>\n
For Putin, the summit is already a big win that he can portray as evidence that years of Western attempts to isolate Russia have unravelled and that Moscow is retaking its rightful place at the top table of international diplomacy.<\/p>\n
Russian special envoy Kirill Dmitriev described the pre-summit mood as \u201ccombative\u201d and said the two leaders would discuss not only Ukraine but the full spectrum of bilateral relations, Russia\u2019s RIA news agency reported.<\/p>\n
Trump, who once said he would end Russia\u2019s war in Ukraine within 24 hours, conceded on Thursday it had proven a tougher task than he had expected. He said that if Friday\u2019s talks went well, quickly arranging a second, three-way summit with Zelensky would be even more important than his encounter with Putin.<\/p>\n
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said a three-way summit would be possible if the Alaska talks bore fruit, Interfax news agency reported. Peskov also said Friday\u2019s talks could last 6-7 hours and that aides would take part in what had been expected to be one-to-one meetings.<\/p>\n
Zelensky said the summit should open the way for a \u201cjust peace\u201d and three-way talks that included him, but added that Russia was continuing to wage war on Friday. A Russian ballistic missile earlier struck Ukraine\u2019s Dnipropetrovsk region, killing one person and wounding another.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s time to end the war, and the necessary steps must be taken by Russia. We are counting on America,\u201d Zelenskiy wrote on the Telegram messaging app.<\/p>\n
\u2018Smart guy\u2019
\nThe Kremlin said Putin would arrive in Alaska at 11am (12am PKT) and would be met at his plane by Trump.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe is a smart guy, been doing it for a long time, but so have I\u2026 We get along, there\u2019s a good respect level on both sides,\u201d Trump said of Putin. He also welcomed Putin\u2019s decision to bring a lot of businesspeople with him to Alaska.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut they\u2019re not doing business until we get the war settled,\u201d he said, repeating a threat of \u201ceconomically severe\u201d consequences for Russia if the summit goes badly.<\/p>\n
One source acquainted with Kremlin thinking said there were signs that Moscow could be ready to strike a compromise on Ukraine, given that Putin understood Russia\u2019s economic vulnerability and the costs of continuing the war.<\/p>\n
Reuters has previously reported that Putin might be willing to freeze the conflict along the front lines, provided there was a legally binding pledge not to enlarge NATO eastwards and to lift some Western sanctions. NATO has said that Ukraine\u2019s future is in the alliance.<\/p>\n
Russia, whose war economy is showing signs of strain, is vulnerable to further US sanctions \u2014 and Trump has threatened tariffs on buyers of Russian crude, primarily China and India.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor Putin, economic problems are secondary to goals, but he understands our vulnerability and costs,\u201d the Russian source said.<\/p>\n
Putin this week held out the prospect of something else he knows Trump wants \u2014 a new nuclear arms control accord to replace the last surviving one, which is due to expire next February.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
United States President Donald Trump said he wanted to see a ceasefire \u201ctoday\u201d as he headed to Alaska on Friday for a summit with Russia\u2019s Vladimir Putin to help end the deadliest war in Europe since World War Two. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who was not invited to the talks, and his European allies fear […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11384,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11383","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11383","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11383"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11383\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11385,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11383\/revisions\/11385"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/11384"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11383"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11383"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11383"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}