Accra: US President Donald Trump has threatened Russian President Vladimir Putin with 'very severe consequences', if he does not agree to end the war in Ukraine. Trump said Putin should prepare for this if he does not agree to end the war during their meeting on Friday in Alaska. In response to a follow-up question about whether by consequences he meant tariffs, the US president did not elaborate.
According to Ghana News Agency, Trump also once again suggested a possible meeting between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Putin, after his planned summit with the Russian leader on Friday. 'We'll have a quick second meeting between President Putin and President Zelensky and myself, if they'd like to have me there,' he said on Wednesday in Washington. However, he said he wanted to wait and see how his planned meeting with Putin in Alaska on Friday would go, as it might not lead to another meeting.
The US president plans to meet Putin in Anchorage, Alaska's largest city, to find solutions to the Russian war against Ukraine that has been ongoing for about three and a half years. At this first meeting, he said he wanted to understand the framework conditions. At the same time, he admitted that he might not be able to prevent Putin from carrying out further attacks on Ukraine.
Neither Zelensky nor the European partner states were invited to the meeting on Friday. Therefore, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, Zelensky, and close European allies met online for preliminary discussions earlier on Wednesday to convey their most important messages to Trump.
