Donald Trump warned Vladimir Putin “not to mess around” with him ahead of their highly anticipated summit in Alaska today. The leaders will convene in Anchorage at 11:30am local time (8.30pm BST) for a one-on-one discussion regarding peace in Ukraine. Ahead of the vital talks, the US President said his Russian counterpart would “much rather… take over all of Ukraine” but urged him to take ceasefire negotiations seriously.
He told reporters in the Oval Office: “I am president, and he’s not going to mess around with me.” Mr Trump also claimed he would be able to determine whether Putin was serious about negotiations “probably in the first two minutes”. If he is, there could be another meeting between the Russian president and Volodymyr Zelensky, notably absent from today’s summit. Mr Trump said his talk with Putin could “set the table” for the Ukrainian president to be involved, “if it’s a good meeting”. He added that there’s only a “25% chance that this meeting will not be a successful meeting”.
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