Russia’s Vladimir Putin sounded positive Thursday on the eve of his talks with President Donald Trump in Alaska, saying he believed the American leader was making “quite energetic and sincere efforts” toward peace in Ukraine.
A day ahead of their summit, Putin convened a meeting of advisers “to inform you about how the negotiation process on the Ukrainian crisis is going,” the Kremlin said in a readout translated by NBC News.
The Russian leader said the Trump administration “is making, 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.”
Those efforts are intended “to create long-term conditions of peace between our countries and in Europe, and in the world as a whole,” he added, particularly if the negotiations extended to cover strategic offensive weapons treaties.
This suggests that a deal on nuclear arms control could be part of the talks. Russia suspended its participation in the New START “reduction in strategic offensive arms” agreement in 2023.
Earlier Thursday, Putin aide Yuri Ushakov said the summit would start with head-to-head talks between Trump, Putin and their translators at 11:30 a.m. local time (3:30 p.m. ET) and would be followed by a joint news conference. The White House later confirmed the joint news conference.
The top-level Russian delegation will include Putin, Ushakov, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, Defense Minister Andrei Belousov, Finance Minister Anton Siluanov, and Putin’s longtime friend and investment envoy Kirill Dmitriev, Ushakov said on a call with journalists in Moscow.
The primary topic of the meeting will be Ukraine, he said, but he added that he expected the “huge, and unfortunately hitherto untapped, potential” of economic ties between the U.S. and Russia would also be discussed.
As well as Putin’s openly stated goal of subjugating Ukraine, he also wants to end Russia’s exile from the Western financial system following economic sanctions imposed by Washington, the European Union and others. Trump has not yet lifted these punishments but has expressed a desire to end Russia’s economic pariah status.
The Trump-Putin summit has prompted howls of dismay and anxiety across Ukraine and Europe, which have not been invited to the talks and fear what the American president may agree with his Russian counterpart about the conflict raging on their continent.
They have been confined to their own diplomatic scrambling, including dozens of calls between Ukraine’s President Zelenskyy and other leaders, culminating in a video call between these parties and Trump himself Wednesday.
Zelenskyy said that Putin “is bluffing” in saying he wants peace.
On Thursday, the Ukrainian leader flew to London and met his British counterpart Prime Minister Keir Starmer for what both called a “productive meeting.” As well as the prospect of Britain financing the small drones that have become central to Ukraine’s battlefield defense, the pair discussed the Alaska talks, “which present a viable chance to make progress as long as Putin takes action to prove he is serious about peace,” a spokesperson from Starmer’s office, No.10 Downing St., said in a statement.
After Wednesday’s call with Zelenskyy, Starmer and others, Trump said that he had assured them that there would be “very severe consequences” — without elaborating what those might be — if Putin did not agree to end the war during their sit-down discussion.
Two European officials and three other people briefed on the call told NBC News that he told them he would not discuss possible divisions of territory with the man flying in from the Kremlin.