A close adviser to Vladimir Putin is warning of “titanic efforts” to disrupt an upcoming meeting between the Russian leader and United States President Donald Trump.
“Certainly, a number of countries interested in continuing the [Russia-Ukraine] conflict will make titanic efforts (provocations and disinformation) to disrupt the planned meeting between President Putin and President Trump,” Kirill Dmitriev, the head of Russia’s sovereign wealth fund, said in a Telegram post on Saturday.
Trump is set to meet with Putin next Friday in Alaska to discuss peace efforts in the Ukraine war.
Dmitriev did not name the countries, though he made the comments in response to a post on X by Dan Caldwell, a former senior adviser to U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, in which Caldwell said he expects a “concerted effort” to undermine the meeting by “forces in Europe and Ukraine who have a vested interest in the war continuing.”
European governments are likely to be strongly opposed to any deal that involves handing over Ukrainian territory to Russia, a prospect raised by Trump on Friday but rejected by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Saturday.
Dmitriev’s pre-emptive accusation regarding disinformation is notable given the EU has long accused Russia of waging its own disinformation campaigns.
The post Moscow warns of ‘provocations’ ahead of Putin-Trump meeting appeared first on Politico.
