Russian presidents suggests summit with Donald Trump in Alaska could result in nuclear arms deal; EU leaders praise US president for offering backup for European ‘reassurance force’. What we know on day 1,269
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Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday that the US was making “sincere efforts” to halt the war in Ukraine and suggested Moscow and Washington could agree a nuclear arms deal as part of a wider effort to strengthen peace during his meeting with Donald Trump in Alaska on Friday. Speaking to his most senior ministers and security officials in televised comments he said that the US was “making, in my opinion, quite energetic and sincere efforts to stop the hostilities, stop the crisis and reach agreements that are of interest to all parties involved in this conflict”.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov however warned that it would be a big mistake to predict the outcome of the upcoming summit, the Interfax news agency reported. Peskov said there were no plans to sign any documents after the summit in the Alaska city of Anchorage, Interfax said.
Trump said he believed Putin was ready to make a deal on Ukraine, but his suggestion the Russian leader and Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy could “divvy things up” was likely to have caused alarm some in Kyiv. The US president implied there was a 75% chance of the Alaska meeting succeeding, and that the threat of economic sanctions may have made Putin more willing to seek an end to the war. Trump insisted that he would not let Putin get the better of him in Friday’s meeting, telling reporters: “I am president, and he’s not going to mess around with me. “I’ll know within the first two minutes, three minutes, four minutes or five minutes … whether or not we’re going to have a good meeting or a bad meeting.
