U.S. NATO Ambassador Matthew Whitaker said President Trump will have to “trust but verify” Russian President Vladimir Putin during their meeting in Alaska on Friday, where they plan to hold talks about ending the war with Ukraine.
On CNN’s “State of the Union” with Dana Bash, Whitaker said if the world leaders reach a deal, there will need to be some verification from Russia and Ukraine that they are taking action toward peace, rather than simply debating peace.
“In any situation with competing national interests, whether it’s the United States, Ukraine, Russia or any of our allies, you just can’t take people at their face value, you’re going to look at their actions,” he said.
Putin is set to meet with Trump in Alaska on Friday to negotiate ceasefire terms. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has not yet been invited, but the White House and Whitaker said it is a possibility.
“The president remains open to a trilateral summit with both leaders,” a senior White House official told NewsNation’s Libbey Dean on Saturday.
Putin last week presented the Trump administration with a peace deal, asking for land concessions in Eastern Ukraine.
However, Zelensky adamantly opposed such a deal, posting on the social platform X, “Any decisions that are against us, any decisions that are without Ukraine, are at the same time decisions against peace. They will not achieve anything.”
Trump promised to end the three-year-long Russia-Ukraine war in 24 hours during his presidential campaign, but negotiations have been more complex than expected for the president.
“That is one of the things that President Trump has mentioned is that he would have a good conversation with Vladimir Putin and that night, rockets and drones would attack the major cities in Ukraine, so it’s going to be about actions,” Whitaker said.
Trump initially imposed an Aug. 8 deadline for a ceasefire, threatening to impose additional sanctions on Russia, but there have been no signs that Moscow has reined in the fighting.
On July 10, tensions ramped up after Putin launched massive attacks on Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, in retaliation against Trump’s criticism of him.
“We get a lot of bulls‑‑‑ thrown at us by Putin, if you want to know the truth,” Trump said during a Cabinet meeting in July. “He’s very nice to us all the time, but it turns out to be meaningless.”
Trump has bragged about his peace negotiating skills this week as he brokered a deal between Armenia and Azerbaijan, who have been longtime foes. The president enacted other peace deals with world leaders in the last months.
Whitaker mentioned those deals, saying that “whether it’s India-Pakistan, whether it’s the Congo and Rwanda, or all the other peace deals that President Trump has been able to negotiate, there is always a verification.”
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