Trump Will Seek to Squeeze Ukraine Ceasefire Deal Out of Putin at Alaska Summit

The meeting of the Russian and US leaders at a Cold War-era air force base in Alaska will be their first face-to-face talks since Trump returned to the White House. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, who was not invited to the talks, and his European allies fear Trump might sell Kyiv out and try to force it into territorial concessions.

Trump is pressing for a truce in the three-and-a-half-year war which would bolster his credentials as a global peacemaker worthy of the Nobel Peace Prize.

For Putin, the summit is a big win before it even starts as he can use it to say that years of Western attempts to isolate Russia have unravelled and that Moscow has been returned to its rightful place at the top table of international diplomacy. He has also long been keen to talk to Trump face-to-face without Ukraine.

The White House said the summit will take place at 11am Alaska time, 10pm Cyprus time.

Trump, who once said he would end Russia’s war in Ukraine within 24 hours, conceded on Thursday that the conflict, Europe’s biggest land war since World War Two, had proven a tougher nut to crack than he had thought.

He said that if his talks with Putin went well, quickly setting up a subsequent three-way summit with Zelenskiy would be even more important than his encounter with Putin.

One source close to the Kremlin said there were signs that Moscow could be ready to strike a compromise on Ukraine. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, a veteran of Russian diplomacy and part of its Alaska delegation, said Moscow never revealed its hand beforehand.

Ukraine and its European allies were heartened by a call on Wednesday in which they said Trump had agreed Ukraine must be involved in any talks about ceding land. Zelenskiy said Trump had also supported the idea of security guarantees for Kyiv.

Putin, whose war economy is showing some signs of strain, needs Trump to help Russia break out of its straitjacket of ever-tightening Western sanctions, or at the very least for him not to hit Moscow with more sanctions, something the US president has threatened.

The day before the summit, the Russian president held out the prospect of something else he knows Trump wants – a new nuclear arms control agreement to replace the last surviving one, which is due to expire in February next year.