‘First two minutes, I’ll know whether…’: Trump ahead of meeting with Putin to end Ukraine war

Ahead of his meeting with Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin, US President Donald Trump has voiced optimism, claiming he will know in the “first two minutes” if he will reach an agreement with Moscow to stop the war in Ukraine. At a White House conference he convened to outline plans for a federal takeover of Washington’s police department to curb crime, Trump made the statement.

“At the end of that meeting, probably the first two minutes, I’ll know exactly whether or not a deal can be made,” Trump said ahead of his Friday summit with Putin, Associated Press reported.

Trump said he thought that the Friday’s meeting with Putin in Alaska would be “really a feel-out meeting”.

The US president said that “it’ll be good, but it might be bad”. He further predicted that he would say, “lots of luck, keep fighting. Or I may say, we can make a deal.”

Volodymyr Zelensky is unlikely to attend the meeting, despite the White House’s earlier suggestion that he be invited to Alaska.

Trump has repeatedly ducked chances to say that he would push for Zelensky to take part in his discussions with Putin. He said the Ukrainian president had been to “a lot of meetings” without managing to stop the war.

The US President also suggested that after his meeting with Putin, the next meeting would be with Zelensky and Putin. “But it could also be a meeting with “Putin and Zelenskyy and me,” he added.

Trump criticized Zelensky in the first few months of his presidency, claiming that the Ukrainian president was a dictator because the nation had not held elections during the conflict. Trump, though, has criticized Putin for not seeming to take the ceasefire initiative more seriously.