US President Donald Trump insisted Thursday he would not be intimidated by Russian leader Vladimir Putin on the eve of a high-stakes summit and said Ukraine would be involved in any deal on its fate.
Putin flies to Alaska on Friday at the invitation of Trump in his first visit to a Western country since he ordered the 2022 invasion of Ukraine that has killed tens of thousands of people.
As Russia made gains on the battlefield, the Kremlin said the two presidents planned to meet one-on-one, heightening fears of European leaders that Putin will cajole Trump into a settlement imposed on Ukraine.
Trump insisted to reporters at the White House: "I am president, and he's not going to mess around with me."
"I'll know within the first two minutes, three minutes, four minutes or five minutes... whether or not we're going to have a good meeting or a bad meeting," Trump said.
"And if it's a bad meeting, it'll end very quickly, and if it's a good meeting, we're going to end up getting peace in the pretty near future," said Trump, who gave the summit a one in four chance of failure.
Trump has voiced admiration for Putin in the past and faced wide criticism after a 2018 summit in Helsinki where he appeared to accept the Russian's denials of US intelligence on Moscow's meddling in US elections.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was not invited to the Alaska summit, which he has denounced as a reward to Putin, and has refused Trump's calls to surrender territory.
Trump promised not to finalize any deal with Putin and said he hoped to hold a three-way summit with Zelensky, possibly immediately afterward in Alaska.
"The second meeting is going to be very, very important, because that's going to be a meeting where they make a deal. And I don't want to use the word 'divvy' things up. But you know, to a certain extent, it's not a bad term," Trump told Fox News Radio.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters any future deal needed also to ensure "security guarantees" for Ukraine.
But Trump has previously backed Russia's stance in ruling out letting Ukraine join NATO.
Shifting Trump tone
Trump had boasted that he could end the war within 24 hours of returning to the White House in January.
But his calls to Putin -- and intense pressure on Zelensky to accept concessions -- have failed to move the Russian leader and Trump has warned of "very severe consequences" if Putin keeps snubbing his overtures.
Putin on Thursday welcomed US diplomacy which he said could also help yield an agreement on nuclear arms control.
"The US administration... is making quite energetic and sincere efforts to end the fighting," Putin told a meeting of top officials in Moscow.
The talks are set to begin at 11:30 am (1930 GMT) Friday at the Elmendorf Air Force Base, a major US military installation in Alaska that has been crucial in monitoring Russia.
"This conversation will take place in a one-on-one format, naturally with the participation of interpreters," Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov told reporters in Moscow.
European support for Zelensky
Zelensky met in London with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who vowed solidarity, a day after receiving support in Berlin.
Russia has made major gains on the ground ahead of the summit.
Ukraine on Thursday issued a mandatory evacuation of families with children from the eastern town of Druzhkivka and four nearby villages near an area where Russia made a swift breakthrough.
Russian forces had on Tuesday swiftly advanced by up to 10 kilometers (six miles) in a narrow section of the front line, their biggest gain in a 24-hour period in more than a year, according to an AFP analysis of data from the US-based Institute for the Study of War.
Ukraine in turn Thursday fired dozens of drones at Russia, wounding several people and sparking fires at an oil refinery in the southern city of Volgograd.
Diplomacy since Russia's invasion has largely failed to secure agreements beyond swaps of prisoners.
Russia said Thursday it had returned 84 prisoners to Ukraine in exchange for an equal number of Russian POWs in the latest exchange.
by Shaun Tandon
