ANCHORAGE — Vladimir Putin is lavishing praise on President Trump ahead of their high-stakes summit in Alaska on Friday, thanking his host for “energetic and sincere efforts to stop the fighting” in Ukraine over three years since the Russian leader attempted to conquer the country.
Trump, at the White House, also expressed optimism ahead of the talks, telling reporters he believes Putin “would like to see a deal” after suffering more than a million Russian casualties on the battlefield.
Yet Russian Foreign Ministry officials said Wednesday that Putin’s war aims remain “unchanged.” And an aggressive Russian advance along the front lines this week provided evidence to military analysts that Moscow has no plans to implement a ceasefire.
It was a day of diplomatic maneuvering ahead of an extraordinary visit from a Russian president to the U.S. homeland, and the first audience Putin has received with a Western leader since the war began.
“It’s going to be very interesting — we’re going to find out where everybody stands,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on Thursday. “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 very near future.”
Putin’s positioning ahead of the summit, and Trump’s eagerness for a deal, continue to fuel worries across Europe and in Ukraine that the Alaska negotiations could result in a bilateral agreement designed by Moscow and endorsed by Washington that sidelines Kyiv.
In London, Britain’s prime minister, Keir Starmer, hosted Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Thursday, offering support for Trump’s effort while placing the onus on Putin to “prove he is serious about peace.”
“They agreed there had been a powerful sense of unity and a strong resolve to achieve a just and lasting peace in Ukraine,” 10 Downing Street said in a statement.
Trump said the Alaska summit, to be held at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Anchorage, is meant to “set the table” for direct talks between Putin and Zelensky that could include himself and European leaders.
Journalists stand outside Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Anchorage on Thursday ahead of Friday’s summit between President Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
(Jae C. Hong / Associated Press)
But addressing reporters, Trump suggested that denying Putin dominion over all of Ukraine — and allowing him to hold on to the territories he has seized militarily — would be concession enough from Moscow. The president had said in recent days that land “swapping” would be part of an ultimate peace settlement, a statement rejected by Kyiv.
“I think President Putin would like to see a deal,” Trump said. “I think if I weren’t president, he would take over all of Ukraine.”
“I am president, and he’s not going to mess around with me,” he added.
Russian state media reported Thursday that Putin had gathered his advisors to inform them of “how the negotiation process on the Ukrainian crisis is going.”
Trump, “in my opinion, quite energetic and sincere efforts to stop the fighting, stop the crisis and reach agreements that are of interest to all parties involved in this conflict,” Putin said.
But U.S. efforts to get Russia to halt the fighting have proved futile for months, with Moscow pressing forward in an offensive that has secured incremental gains on the battlefield.
“Putin thinks that he is winning this war militarily,” said Frederick Kagan, director of the Critical Threats Project, which collaborates with the Institute for the Study of War to produce daily battlefield assessments on the conflict. “He’s also confident that Western support for Ukraine, and particularly U.S. support, will break, and that when it does, Ukraine will collapse, and he’ll be able to take control of the whole thing.”
“It’s been his theory of victory for a long time,” Kagan said, “and it’s a huge part of the problem, because he’s not going to make any concessions so long as he’s confident that he’s winning.”
Russian incursions along a strategic portion of the front line, near a crucial Ukrainian logistics hub, spooked Ukraine’s supporters earlier this week. While serious, Kagan said that Russia does not hold the territory, and said that the conditions for offensive Russian operations had been set over the course of months.
“The Russians continue to have the initiative, and they continue to make gains,” he added. “The first step in changing Putin’s calculation about the war is to urgently help the Ukrainians stop the gains.”
Zelensky, after meeting with Starmer in London, said that he and the British leader had “discussed expectations for the meeting in Alaska and possible prospects.”
“We also discussed in considerable detail the security guarantees that can make peace truly durable,” Zelensky said, “if the United States succeeds in pressing Russia to stop the killings and engage in genuine, substantive diplomacy.”
Trump and Putin plan on arriving of the U.S. airbase within moments of one another, and are expected to meet on the tarmac before retreating into a private meeting.
Afterward, Trump and Putin will take questions from the press, the White House said.