(NewsNation) — President Donald Trump said he is feeling “optimistic” about his meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday in Anchorage, Alaska, according to a senior White House official.
Trump rated a virtual emergency summit with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and European leaders as a “10” on Wednesday morning, calling it “very, very friendly” and describing it as preparation for the Alaska meeting.
“It’s going to be a very important meeting, but it’s setting the table for the second meeting,” Trump said, though he expressed uncertainty about whether a follow-up meeting would occur.
White House officials provided conflicting accounts about whether Trump had considered inviting Zelenskyy to Alaska.
While one official told NewsNation over the weekend that Trump was considering including the Ukrainian president, another White House source said Tuesday that such an invitation was never under consideration and that the meeting was always planned as a bilateral discussion.
In preparation for Friday’s bilateral talks, Trump has been meeting with key advisors including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Special Envoy Witkoff and Chief of Staff Susie Wiles.
Witkoff, who has been spearheading the negotiations on ending the war in Ukraine and has met with Putin a few times this year, is expected to attend.
Trump rates call with Zelenskyy a ’10,’ warns of consequences for Russia
While Trump rated his call with Zelenskyy as a “10, very friendly,” he said his meeting with Putin may not prove to be that productive.
“There is a very good chance that we are going to have a second meeting, which will be more productive than the first,” Trump said. “Because the first is, I’m going to find out where we are and what we are doing.”
Trump said he would call Zelenskyy following his meeting with Putin on Friday, adding that he would like to see a second meeting happen “almost immediately.”
“It’s setting the table for the second meeting,” Trump said. “Now there may be no second meeting. Because if I feel it is 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 has said he wants to see whether Putin is serious about ending the war, now in its fourth year, and has described the summit as “a feel-out meeting” in which he can assess the Russian leader’s intentions. Trump has suggested land swaps could play a role in bringing the war to an end.
However, Zelenskyy has rejected the idea that his country would give up land to end the war. Zelenskyy said Ukraine “will not give Russia any awards for what it has done” and that “Ukrainians will not give their land to the occupier.” Zelenskyy has said he believes Putin is not interested in negotiating during the meeting in Alaska, which will be Putin’s first trip to the United States since 2015.
Trump told reporters there would be “severe consequences” for Russia if Putin does not agree to stop the war following the meeting on Friday but did not elaborate as to what those would be. When questioned about his ability to convince Putin to stop targeting civilians, Trump said no.
“I’ve had a lot of good conversations with him. Then I go home and I see that a rocket hit a nursing home or a rocket hit an apartment building and people are laying dead in the street,” Trump said. “So I guess the answer to that is no.”
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and other European leaders are demanding Putin first agree to a ceasefire before any peace talks or land swaps between Moscow and Kyiv can take place, Politico reported. In addition, Merz and other leaders are requesting that, should any land swaps happen, they must be agreed to by Kyiv and that Russia should give Ukraine security guarantees to protect it from future attacks.