Donald Trump has sent Vladimir Putin a clear message before their much-anticipated summit in Alaska.
The two presidents are going to meet in Alaska on Friday, August 15, to talk about ways to end the three-and-a-half-year-old war between Russia and Ukraine.
Trump hasn’t said exactly what Russia would face, but he did say that penalties or tariffs could be on the table if they don’t move.
When reporters asked Trump if there would be consequences if Putin didn’t stop the war, he answered, “Yes, they will.” When asked again, he said, “I don’t have to say, there will be very severe consequences.”
The 79-year-old added that the Alaska summit is supposed to set the stage for a second meeting that might include Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, even though there is a threat.
If the first one goes alright, we’ll have a quick second one, Trump stated. I would like to accomplish it relatively immediately, and we’ll have a brief second meeting between President Putin and President Zelenskiy and myself, if they’d like to have me there.
The threat comes after a virtual conference between Trump, European leaders, and Zelenskyy that German Chancellor Friedrich Merz convened. During the discussion, Western leaders made it plain what the red lines were for the Alaska talks.
Emmanuel Macron, the president of France, claimed that the 47th president had confirmed two important ideas.
Macron said that President Trump made it very clear that the US wished to end the fighting at this summit in Alaska. The second thing that was quite evident was that the Ukrainian president is the only one who can negotiate Ukraine’s territories.
He also said that if Russia doesn’t move toward peace, the US and Europe should… put more pressure on them.
Still, tensions loom as Russian soldiers have launched a major attack in eastern Ukraine – a move regarded by Kyiv as an attempt to boost Moscow’s position before of the summit.
Zelenskyy told the U.S. president and all of our European partners that Putin is lying, according to Reuters. He is seeking to put pressure on all sectors of the Ukrainian front before the conference in Alaska. Russia is trying to prove that it can take over all of Ukraine.
Zelenskyy is still against giving up any land. He said earlier last week, “We will not leave Donbas.” We can’t do this. Everyone forgets the first part: our land is illegally occupied.
The president of Ukraine has also said many times that any deal that doesn’t include Ukraine would be illegal. In a recent Telegram chat, he added, “These are dead solutions; they will never work.” The occupier will not get the land from Ukrainians.
The Kremlin’s demands are still the same: Ukraine must completely leave four regions that Russia has partially seized, and Ukraine must formally promise to stop trying to join NATO. Kyiv has strongly said that these terms are not acceptable.
At the same time, Trump is getting more and more angry that Putin won’t talk to him. His envoy said lately that there had been “great progress” in discussions in Moscow, which is a big change from weeks of stagnant diplomacy.
European officials have warily welcomed Trump’s attempts to mediate, but they have also made it clear that no decision should be made without Ukraine’s full participation.
Polls show that most Ukrainians (69%) want the war to end through negotiations, but most do not want to give up land for peace.
The Alaska summit will show if Trump can get the Russian leader to make a deal, or if it will make the differences between the two countries even bigger and make the chance of a clash with European countries even higher.