‘SEVERE CONSEQUENCES’
Trump warned on Wednesday that he would take a follow-up meeting off the table if he felt Putin was acting in bad faith.
“There may be no second meeting because, if I feel that it’s not appropriate to have it because I didn’t get the answers that we have to have, then we are not going to have a second meeting,” Trump said.
According to an AFP analysis of battlefield data from the US-based Institute for the Study of War, Russian forces made their biggest 24-hour advance into Ukraine in more than a year on Tuesday.
As the war rages on in eastern Ukraine, Zelenskyy flew to Berlin and joined Chancellor Friedrich Merz on an online call with other European leaders, and the NATO and European Union chiefs, in which they talked to Trump and urged a united stance against Russia.
The consensus was for Trump to secure a ceasefire, and Trump said Russia would face “severe consequences” if it did not halt its offensive.
But Zelenskyy also voiced doubt about Moscow’s intentions, saying: “I have told my colleagues – the US president and our European friends – that Putin definitely does not want peace.”
Trump on Monday played down the possibility of a breakthrough in Alaska but said he expected “constructive conversations” with Putin.
“This is really a feel-out meeting a little bit,” Trump said. But he added that eventually “there’ll be some swapping, there’ll be some changes in land”.
Merz said Ukraine is ready to negotiate “on territorial issues” but stressed that legal recognition of Russian occupations “would not be up for debate”.
After the call, European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen said Europe, the United States and NATO had “strengthened the common ground for Ukraine” while NATO head Mark Rutte declared: “The ball is now in Putin’s court.”
