Trump and other administration officials have indicated Fridayâs summit in Alaska is not meant to be one that will bring an end to the fighting in Ukraine, using terms like âlistening sessionâ and âfeel-out meetingâ to describe the planned discussion about the war in Ukraine.
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The president and his team have also largely avoided predicting any deliverables that might come out of the meeting and noted that it will likely take a follow-up summit involving both Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky for any concrete progress to be made on a ceasefire.
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âThereâs a very good chance that weâre going to have a second meeting that will be more productive than the first,â Trump said Wednesday. âBecause the first is Iâm going to find out where we are and what weâre doing.â
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The White House has steered clear of making any firm commitments about what will come out of Fridayâs gathering in Anchorage, and details have been scarce as officials work to rapidly pull the event together on one weekâs notice. The president himself has offered mixed signals about what will happen.
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Trump is expected to meet one-on-one with Putin, press secretary Karoline Leavitt said, and the event will take place at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson. But other logistics were still being sorted out as the summit approached.
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âThis is a listening exercise for this president,â Leavitt told reporters on Tuesday. âLook, only one party thatâs involved in this war is going to be present. And so this is for the president to go and to get, again, a more firm and better understanding of how we can hopefully bring this war to an end.â
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Trump is a wild card in Fridayâs meeting.Â
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He has avoided setting expectations for the event, telling reporters earlier this week that the conversation with Putin âwill be good, but it might be bad.â
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Trump on Wednesday threatened âsevere consequencesâ if Russia did not stop the fighting after this weekâs summit, then minutes later acknowledged that he is unlikely to be able to get Putin to stop targeting Ukrainian civilians.
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And he said he hoped to arrange a second meeting quickly involving Putin and Zelensky, or that perhaps a second meeting would not happen at all.
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âIf the first one goes OK, weâll have a quick second one. I would like to do it almost immediately,â Trump said. âI think the second meeting â if the second meeting takes place. Now there may be no second meeting, because if I feel itâs not appropriate to have it because I didnât get the answers that we have to have, then weâre not going to have a second meeting.â
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Some critics have bemoaned that Trump is giving Putin a win simply by holding the meeting on U.S. soil without Zelensky or leadership from Ukraine present.
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And European allies have approached Fridayâs meeting with caution, expressing appreciation for Trumpâs efforts while bracing for the possibility that he may go off script. Trump has in recent days suggested Ukraine may have to give up land to Russia as part of a peace agreement, something Ukrainian leaders have said is a non-starter.
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Read the full report at TheHill.com.
