High stakes, low expectations before crucial US-Russia talks

ANCHORAGE, Alaska — Pressure mounted ahead of a summit in Alaska between the United States and Russia, as Donald Trump warned that Vladimir Putin had only one chance but Moscow pressed ahead with major battlefield gains in Ukraine.

Putin and Trump will meet on Friday at an air base in the far-northern US state, marking the Russian leader's first trip to a Western country since the special military operation that began in February 2022.

With such high stakes, all sides were pushing hard in the hours before the meeting.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who has refused to cede territory to Russia, spoke by telephone on Wednesday with Trump, as did European leaders who voiced confidence afterward that the US leader would seek a ceasefire rather than concessions by Kyiv.

Trump himself sent mixed messages, saying he could quickly organize a three-way summit afterward with both Zelensky and Putin but also warning of his impatience with the latter.

"There may be no second meeting because, if I feel that it's not appropriate to have it because I didn't get the answers that we have to have, then we are not going to have a second meeting," Trump told reporters.

Russia, he said, would face "severe consequences" if it does not halt its offensive.

However, Trump added that "if the first one goes okay, we'll have a quick second one" involving both Putin and Zelensky.

Putin pitched the meeting after Trump threatened sanctions on Russia. The US president has already ramped up tariffs on India, which has become a key buyer of Russian energy.

Zelensky, after being berated by Trump at a February meeting in the White House, has publicly supported US diplomacy but made clear his deep skepticism.

"I have told my colleagues — the US president and our European friends — that Putin definitely does not want peace," Zelensky said.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, who welcomed Zelensky in Berlin, said Ukraine is ready to negotiate "on territorial issues" but emphasized that the legal recognition of Russia-claimed territories "would not be up for debate".

NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte said, "The ball is now in Putin's court."

Settling the conflict

The Kremlin said on Thursday that Putin and Trump are expected to discuss ways to settle the Ukraine conflict during their Alaska talks.

"It is probably obvious to everyone that the central topic will be the resolution of the Ukraine crisis," Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov told reporters.

The talks are scheduled to start at 11:30 am (1930 GMT), with both leaders giving a joint news conference following their meeting, Ushakov said.

The summit will be held at Elmendorf Air Force Base, a major US military hub in Alaska's most populous city of Anchorage that played a key role in monitoring the Soviet Union during the Cold War.

Off the base, on the rainy streets of Anchorage, there were few signs that the world's eyes would soon be on the city, other than an influx of media who have booked up virtually all rooms.

The US Treasury Department announced that it would temporarily ease sanctions on the visiting senior Russian officials, who normally would struggle to carry out simple transactions, such as withdrawing cash in Western countries.

The most visible sign of the impending summit was in Ukraine itself.

According to an AFP analysis of battlefield data from the US-based Institute for the Study of War, Russian forces made their biggest 24-hour advance into Ukraine in more than a year on Tuesday.

Ukrainian soldiers in Kramatorsk, an eastern city about 20 kilometers from the front, said they had low expectations for Trump's meeting with Putin.

Artem, a 30-year-old serviceman, said the conflict would likely continue for "a long time".

Agencies Via Xinhua