US President Donald Trump has said that Vladimir Putin will face “severe consequences” if he doesn’t agree a truce to end the war in Ukraine during the upcoming Alaska summit on Friday.
Trump made the remarks on Wednesday, following his virtual meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and other European leaders who made a final attempt to remind Trump of Ukraine’s interests and Europe’s security ahead of the meeting with Putin in Alaska.
“If the first one [meeting] goes OK, we’ll have a quick second one. I would like to do it almost immediately, and we’ll have a quick second meeting between President Putin and President Zelenskyy and myself, if they’d like to have me there.”
Trump described as “ten out of ten” his video call with European leaders, in which he consulted the strategy for his summit in Alaska. Trump and Vice President JD Vance spoke to the leaders of the UK, France, Germany, Italy, Finland and Poland as well as EU chief Ursula von der Leyen and Nato chief Mark Rutte in a video call two days before the hastily organized summit from which they had been sidelined. European leaders seem to be reassured about the summit after Trump’s reassurances given during the video call, French President Emmanuel Macron said. However, European leaders also expressed concerns over Trump’s previous statement that the potential truce would involve “land swapping” inside Ukraine.
"It's most important thing that Europe convinces Donald Trump that one can't trust Russia," Poland's Donald Tusk said, while German Chancellor Friedrich Merz stressed the leaders had "made it clear that Ukraine must be at the table as soon as follow-up meetings take place".
Co-chairs of the “coalition of willing” made up of Britain, France and Germany, reiterated their position that Ukraine’s international borders must not be changed by force.
