Putin convinced he’ll make a Ukraine deal: Trump
US President Donald Trump says the aim of talks with the Russian president is to set up a second meeting including Ukraine as the two sides exchanged prisoners.
Source: Rapid Response 47
US President Donald Trump says he believes Russian President Vladimir Putin is ready to make a deal on ending his war in Ukraine.
Trump, who will meet Putin in Alaska on Friday (early Saturday AEST), said he was unsure whether an immediate ceasefire could be achieved but expressed interest in brokering a peace agreement.
“He really, I believe now, he’s convinced that he’s going to make a deal, he’s going to make a deal. I think he’s going to, and we’re going to find out,” Trump told Fox News Radio.
Earlier on Thursday, Putin said that the US was making “sincere efforts” to end the war in Ukraine and suggested that Russia and the US could agree on a nuclear arms deal as part of a broader push to strengthen peace.
Putin earlier spoke to his most senior ministers and security officials as he prepared for the meeting, a presidential adviser said in a statement.
Trump also told Fox he had three locations in mind for a follow-up meeting with Putin and Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky, although he noted that meeting was not guaranteed.
He said staying in Alaska for a three-way summit would be the easiest scenario.
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“Depending on what happens with my meeting, I’m going to be calling up President Zelensky, and let’s get him over to wherever we’re going to meet,” Trump said.
He said a second meeting – between himself, Putin and Zelensky – would likely dig deeper into boundary issues.
Zelensky has been adamant about not ceding territory that Russian forces occupy.
Trump said it would be up to Putin and Zelensky to strike an agreement.
“I’m not going to negotiate their deal. I’m going to let them negotiate their deal,” he said.
No joint statement was planned after the summit between Putin and Trump, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Thursday.
“No, nothing is to be expected, nothing has been prepared and it is unlikely that there will be any document,” Peskov told Interfax.
“Given that there will be a joint press conference, the president (Putin) will of course outline the scope of the agreements and arrangements that can be reached.”
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US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Trump will go into the talks hoping to achieve a halt to the fighting in Ukraine but that a comprehensive solution to the war would take longer.
“To achieve a peace, I think we all recognise that there’ll have to be some conversation about security guarantees. There’ll have to be some conversation about … territorial disputes and claims, and what they’re fighting over,” Rubio said at the US State Department on Thursday.
“All these things will be part of a comprehensive thing. But I think the President’s hope is to achieve some stoppage of fighting so that those conversations can happen.”
Zelensky said on Thursday that Ukraine and Russia had carried out another prisoner swap.
“A new exchange, 84 people,” he wrote on social media.
Soldiers and civilians were included, the Ukrainian leader said, thanking the United Arab Emirates for its help in organising the exchange on the border with Belarus.
The Ukrainian Staff for Prisoner of War Affairs said it was the 67th exchange since the start of the war.
The Russian defence ministry confirmed the handover, reporting the return of 84 prisoners of war.
Ukrainian drones struck two Russian cities on Thursday in attacks that injured at least 16 people, local authorities said.
Thirteen people were wounded, two seriously, when a drone struck an apartment building in the southern Russian city of Rostov-on-Don, the acting regional governor said.
Three civilians were wounded in the city of Belgorod near the border with Ukraine, according to the governor of that region, who posted video appearing to show a drone striking a car in the centre of the city.
