President Donald Trump said he hopes to meet Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky soon—possibly right after his upcoming summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska. He called the second meeting “very, very important.”
Speaking before Friday’s talks with Putin, Trump warned the summit might not succeed. He said any deal about Ukraine’s future should happen only through a separate three-way meeting with Kyiv to “divide things up.”
The Kremlin has confirmed that Trump and Putin will meet one-on-one, which has worried European allies who fear Moscow could pressure Washington into an agreement that leaves Ukraine at a disadvantage.
Trump made it clear he would not finalize any agreement without involving Zelensky. “I am president, and he’s not going to mess around with me,” Trump told reporters at the White House. He also said he would know within the first few minutes if the meeting with Putin would go well or not. If it went badly, he said, it would end quickly. If it went well, he hoped it could bring peace soon. He estimated the summit had a one-in-four chance of failure.
Zelensky, who was not invited to the Alaska talks, criticized the meeting as a reward for Putin and rejected the idea of giving up Ukrainian land.
Trump still hopes to meet Zelensky right after the Putin summit. “That’s going to be a meeting where they make a deal,” Trump told Fox News Radio. “And I don’t want to use the word ‘divvy’ things up, but in some ways, it’s not a bad term.”
Putin’s Alaska visit will be his first trip to a Western nation since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, a war that has killed tens of thousands. The meeting is scheduled for 1:00 AM IST (1930 GMT) at Elmendorf Air Force Base, a major U.S. military site that keeps watch on Russia.
Trump has often said he could end the war within 24 hours of returning to the White House in January, but so far his talks with Putin and pressure on Zelensky to compromise have not worked. Since the invasion began, most diplomacy has failed except for prisoner swaps. On Thursday, Russia said it exchanged 84 Ukrainian prisoners for the same number of Russian soldiers.
