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The Trump administration is tempering expectations ahead of today’s much-anticipated meeting between President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The US leader’s aides shifted their tone on Thursday from touting the high stakes of the Alaska sit-down to expressing some caution as to whether the face-to-face could lead to an immediate, significant shift in Russia’s war in Ukraine.
On Thursday, Trump told Fox News radio that there’s “a 25% chance” Friday’s meeting would not be “successful,” while reiterating that it’s designed to set the stage for a second meeting — which is likely to include Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. The president later told reporters that a potential second meeting would be the “more important” one.
“I’ll know within the first two minutes, three minutes, four minutes or five minutes left, we tend to find out whether or not we’re going to have a good meeting or a bad meeting,” Trump added of the Friday bilateral. “And if it’s a bad meeting, it’ll end very quickly. And if it’s a good meeting, we’re going to end up getting peace in the pretty near future.”
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Friday’s meeting in Alaska will be the third time the two have met face-to-face: During the first Trump administration, the US president met with Putin in 2017 at the G20 summit and again in 2018. At that meeting, he notably sided with Putin on the question of Russian interference in the election.
Even as the administration — and Trump himself — dials back the anticipation for Friday, the president has also tried to stay optimistic about a breakthrough. He said Thursday morning that he believes Putin is “going to make a deal,” though the statement ultimately included a caveat.
The two leaders have scheduled a joint press conference, suggesting they believe the meeting will have some success. Yet it’s likely that Putin would insist on territorial concessions bigger than those Zelenskyy is willing to make — beyond the ceding of Crimea to Russia — in exchange for any cessation of hostilities.
Earlier this week, Trump also declared Russia would face “consequences” if Putin doesn’t agree to stop the war after Friday’s meeting. The president declined to specify what those consequences might look like, but said they’d be “very severe.”
Some of his top aides have not gone that far; White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt on Tuesday described the sitdown as a “listening exercise” for Trump, where the goal is “to walk away with a better understanding of how we can end this war.”
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European officials will be watching the sit-down closely, with one telling Semafor that they “assume it will be disappointing, but not wholesale betrayal.”
Trump told Zelenskyy he won’t discuss the possibility of territory divisions with Putin, according to NBC News.
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