Trump, hard message for Putin, before the Alaska summit: “There will be very serious consequences” if it does not end the war / “very high chances” for a Zelenski-Putin meeting

US President Donald Trump promised on Wednesday “very serious consequences” for Russia if his Kremlin counterpart, Vladimir Putin, does not accept to end the Ukraine war during the meeting between the two leaders to take place on Friday, Alaska, CNN, Reuters and Sky News reports.

Asked if Russia will suffer consequences if Putin does not agree to stop the war after the meeting on Friday, Trump replied: “Yes, there will be consequences.” The statements of the US leader were made during an event at the Kennedy Center in Washington.

Asked if that means new sanctions or customs rates, Trump has hesitated to give a clear answer.

“I do not have to say,” he said, only adding: “There will be very serious consequences.”

Trump says he can't convince Putin to stop attacks on civilians

Then he was asked if he believes he could convince Putin to cease attacks on civilians in Ukraine, and the US president replied that “no”, saying he asked for this before, but without result.

“Well, let's tell you something. I had this discussion with him. I had a lot of constructive discussions with him. Then I go home and see that a rocket hit an old asylum or an apartment block and people lie dead on the street. So I think the answer is no, because I had this discussion,” said the American leader.

Trump had previously threatened with new sanctions against Moscow as a punishment for the Ukraine war, establishing last Friday as a deadline for imposing them, unless Putin will be presented at the negotiation table.

The deadline has expired without imposing new sanctions, which could have had a limited effect, given the low level of trade between the US and Russia, notes CNN.

Trump also threatened with secondary sanctions against countries that purchase energy from Russia. Although he imposed new taxes on India, the second Russian oil buyer, he did not go to impose new taxes on the biggest client of India, China.

Trump wants a three meeting with Putin and Zelenski “almost immediately”, after the Alaska summit

The White House leader also stated that if his meeting on Friday with Russian President Vladimir Putin will go well, he would like to organize the second meeting to attend Ukrainian Volodimir Zelenski.

“I had a very good discussion,” Trump said about today's online meeting with Zelenski and European leaders.

“He participated in the conversation. President Zelenski participated in the call. I would note her with note ten, you know, very, very friendly,” Trump said.

Trump then continued to talk about the potential measures before the Friday's meeting.

“There is very high chances of having a second meeting, which will be more productive than the first, because in the first you find out where we are and what we do,” he said.

Trump said that the second meeting will be organized only if his summit with Putin “will go well”.

He added that he wants the second meeting to take place “almost immediately” between Putin and Zelenski “and I, if they want to be present.”

What Trump said:

• “That's how it was planned, I was going to meet President Putin. Then, after that, I will call the leaders and President Zelenski. I will call President Zelenski, and then I will probably call the leaders in this order.
• (The first meeting) prepares the land for the second meeting … there may not be a second meeting, because if I consider it not appropriate, because we have not obtained the answers we need, then we will not have a second meeting.“

Zelenski asked for an armistice, sanctions against Russia and be received in negotiations

Ukrainian President Volodimir Zelenski said on Wednesday, after participating in a video conference of a group of European leaders with US President Donald Trump, that the 'central theme' of the summit he will have in Alaska on Friday with Russian President Vladimir Putin must be a cessation of fire ' imposed new sanctions, and asked to be received at the negotiation table with Russia by organizing a trilateral summit with Trump and Putin, AFP, Reuters and EFE have previously reported.

“We hope that the central theme of the meeting (between Trump and Putin n.red) will be a cessation of fire. A cessation of immediate fire,” said Volodimir Zelenski, talking in Berlin at a common press conference with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz. “The sanctions must be established (existing) consolidated if Russia does not agree with an armistice in (in) Alaska,” he insisted, according to Agerpres.

“I told the US president and all our European colleagues that Putin plays in Cacealma. He tries before the Alaska meeting to put pressure on all the Ukrainian front sectors. Ukrainian in numerical inferiority.

The Ukrainian president also expressed his dissatisfaction that the Trump-Putin bilateral summit will not be followed in Alaska by a trilateral summit to participate. Zelenski asked for the organization of such a summit and insisted that any territorial issues be discussed only at such a tripartite meeting, in no way. “Without Ukraine, it is impossible to determine this. And, in fact, everyone agrees with it,” he said, adding that he has received from Trump the promise that he will inform him about the discussion with Putin on Friday.

“My position has not changed,” Zelenski replied to a question about possible territorial assignments to Russia in exchange for a cease. “We have a Constitution. This is our basis. And the Constitution has not changed, and I cannot change the Constitution. I am the guarantor of the Constitution,” he invoked as a justification for the refusal to give up any territory.

For his part, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said that, at the summit in “Alaska, the fundamental European and Ukrainian security interests must be defended.”

“This is the message that we, the Europeans, sent today to President Trump. And I can say that we are very much in accordance with both the beginning of the beginning and the objective for this Friday” at the Trump-Putin summit, the Merz estimated, which had the initiative to organize the video conferencing, to which the head, Poland and Finland, the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Council, Antonio Costa, and NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte.

The latter posted a message on the video conferencing on social networks, in which he describes the discussion with the US president as a 'very good'. “I appreciate Donald Trump's leadership, the coordination close to the allies. The ball is now in the land of Russia,” Rutte said.

While Ukraine and its European supporters are afraid of the risk that at the Alaska summit we could attend this summit at a new Ialta, with distribution of territories and spheres of influence, the spokesman of the White House, Karoline Leavitt, descended the expectations for the agreement of a peace agreement in Ukraine and to the USA to meet the US and to the USA Rather, be an 'listening exercise' to understand Russia's intentions.

Trump had also advanced that this bilateral summit may be followed in the same place by a trilateral summit in which the Ukrainian president Volodimir Zelenski also participates, but eventually this trilateral summit will not take place, but the same spokesman claimed that it could be organized again.