U.S. President Donald Trump will approach his encounter with Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin as a “listening exercise,” the White House said, taming expectations that this week’s Alaska summit could yield a deal to end Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
“This is a listening exercise for the president. Look, only one party that’s involved in this war is going to be present,” White House Spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said Tuesday. “And so this is for the president to go and, again, to get a more firm and better understanding of how we can hopefully bring this war to an end.”
The shift to downplaying the Friday meeting between the two heads of state — which will take place at the Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Anchorage, Alaska, according to NBC News reporting — takes place as Russia has deepened its advance in eastern Ukraine, in a likely bid for battlefield leverage ahead of negotiations. Moscow has persisted on a set of maximalist conditions to cease the devastating war in Ukraine, including the retainment of occupied territories, Kyiv’s renunciation of its ambitions to join the NATO alliance and fresh elections in the invaded country.
Concerns have been growing in Kyiv and among its European allies that an increasingly frustrated Trump, who has criticized both Russia and Ukraine over the course of the U.S.-brokered discussions, could push through peace at the price of territorial concessions.
