Trump and other administration officials have indicated Friday’s summit in Alaska is not meant to be one that will bring an end to the fighting in Ukraine, using terms like “listening session” and “feel-out meeting” to describe the planned discussion about the war in Ukraine.
The president and his team have also largely avoided predicting any deliverables that might come out of the meeting and noted that it will likely take a follow-up summit involving both Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky for any concrete progress to be made on a ceasefire.
“There’s a very good chance that we’re going to have a second meeting that will be more productive than the first,” Trump said Wednesday. “Because the first is I’m going to find out where we are and what we’re doing.”
The White House has steered clear of making any firm commitments about what will come out of Friday’s gathering in Anchorage, and details have been scarce as officials work to rapidly pull the event together on one week’s notice. The president himself has offered mixed signals about what will happen.
Trump is expected to meet one-on-one with Putin, press secretary Karoline Leavitt said, and the event will take place at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson. But other logistics were still being sorted out as the summit approached.
“This is a listening exercise for this president,” Leavitt told reporters on Tuesday. “Look, only one party that’s involved in this war is going to be present. And so this is for the president to go and to get, again, a more firm and better understanding of how we can hopefully bring this war to an end.”
Trump is a wild card in Friday’s meeting.
He has avoided setting expectations for the event, telling reporters earlier this week that the conversation with Putin “will be good, but it might be bad.”
Trump on Wednesday threatened “severe consequences” if Russia did not stop the fighting after this week’s summit, then minutes later acknowledged that he is unlikely to be able to get Putin to stop targeting Ukrainian civilians.
And he said he hoped to arrange a second meeting quickly involving Putin and Zelensky, or that perhaps a second meeting would not happen at all.
“If the first one goes OK, we’ll have a quick second one. I would like to do it almost immediately,” Trump said. “I think the second meeting – if the second meeting takes place. Now there may be no second meeting, because if I feel it’s not appropriate to have it because I didn’t get the answers that we have to have, then we’re not going to have a second meeting.”
Some critics have bemoaned that Trump is giving Putin a win simply by holding the meeting on U.S. soil without Zelensky or leadership from Ukraine present.
And European allies have approached Friday’s meeting with caution, expressing appreciation for Trump’s efforts while bracing for the possibility that he may go off script. Trump has in recent days suggested Ukraine may have to give up land to Russia as part of a peace agreement, something Ukrainian leaders have said is a non-starter.
Welcome to The Hill’s Defense & National Security newsletter, I’m Ellen Mitchell — your guide to the latest developments at the Pentagon, on Capitol Hill and beyond.
The Russian military has pierced pockets of Ukraine’s front lines in the eastern Donetsk region this week, pushing forward just days before Russia’s President Vladimir Putin is set to meet with President Trump in Alaska. Russian troops have made gains in a push toward Dobropillia, a city some 60 miles northwest of Donetsk city, according to DeepState, a Ukrainian group linked to the military that tracks battlefield advances …
President Trump warned on Wednesday that there would be “severe consequences” for Russia if it did not agree to stop its war in Ukraine after his meeting with President Vladimir Putin on Friday. “There will be consequences. I don’t have to say. There will be very severe consequences,” Trump told reporters during an event at the Kennedy Center. The president previously threatened in July to impose sanctions and secondary …
European leaders said President Trump on Wednesday assured them he would not negotiate territorial issues with Russian President Vladimir Putin at their summit in Alaska this week, saying it is an issue that must be discussed between Ukraine and Russia. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and French President Emmanuel Macron both said Trump made the comments during a virtual meeting with European leaders and Ukrainian President …
Former Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes said Wednesday he’s doubtful Ukraine will recover all of its territory occupied by Russia amid ongoing peace talks brokered by President Trump. “Part of what the Ukrainians don’t have is a kind of sense of hope, a sense that they have enduring support from the United States, that they have a plan from their allies to support them in the long run,” Rhodes, who was an adviser …
A federal judge on Tuesday temporarily ordered Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to improve conditions for migrants it detains in a federal building in downtown Manhattan. Civil rights groups raised alarm to U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan about conditions in the facility, saying migrants …
Upcoming things we’re watching in and around the defense world:
The Center for European Policy Analysiswill hold an online briefing for press on the Trump-Putin Alaska Summit, at 10 a.m.
The Center for a New American Securitywill have a virtual discussion on “Policy Options on Afghanistan Four Years After the U.S. Withdrawal,” at 10 a.m.
The Arab Center, Washington, D.C. will have a book discussion on “Understanding Palestine and Israel,” at 12 p.m.
What We’re Reading
News we’ve flagged from other outlets:
Trump’s domestic troop deployment tests the limits of a nearly 150-year-old law (The Associated Press)
Watchdog finds 50% increase in VA medical center jobs with ‘severe’ shortages (Military.com)
Female vets in Congress slam Hegseth’s repost of Christian Nationalist (Military Times)
Opinions in The Hill
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