Skip next section Merz: Putin has ‘opportunity’ to agree to Ukraine ceasefire
08/15/2025August 15, 2025
Merz: Putin has ‘opportunity’ to agree to Ukraine ceasefire
German Chancellor said Russian President Vladimir Putin will have “an opportunity” to end the war in Ukraine when he meets with US President Donald Trump in Alaska.
“We expect President Putin to take President Trump’s offer of talks seriously and to enter into negotiations with Ukraine without preconditions after the meeting in Alaska,” Merz said in a statement.
However, he said peace must be agreed upon with Ukrainian participation.
“A ceasefire must be agreed there,” he said, adding that territorial questions could only be decided with the consent of the Ukrainianside.
He added that Trump “can now take a major step toward peace” more than three years since Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.
https://p.dw.com/p/4z17g
Skip next section Trump vows not to be intimidated by Putin
08/15/2025August 15, 2025
Trump vows not to be intimidated by Putin
President Donald Trump said on the eve of the summit he believed his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, might reach an agreement on Ukraine.
“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,” Trump said Thursday in the White House.
He added that any peace agreement would be preceeded by talks that include Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
“If the first one goes okay, we’ll have a quick second one,” Trump said.
Trump acknowledged that the meeting might not turn out like he wanted.
“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, adding that he thought there was a 25% chance the meeting would not go well.
https://p.dw.com/p/4z17V
Skip next section Welcome to our coverage08/15/2025August 15, 2025
Welcome to our coverage
US President Donald Trump is sitting down with Russia’s Vladimir Putin in Alaska, hoping to strike a ceasefire deal to end the war in Ukraine.
Trump says if the talks go well, he’ll push for a follow-up summit with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who was not invited to Friday’s meeting.
For Putin, the talks offer a chance to secure Russia’s territorial gains and block Ukraine’s NATO ambitions.
Ukraine and its European allies were heartened by their conference call on Wednesday in which they said Trump agreed that Kyiv must be part of any land-for-peace negotiations.
That call helped ease fears of a deal that might pressure Ukraine into making major concessions.
We will provide news, analysis, and updates from any media conference following the talks here.
https://p.dw.com/p/4z173
The post Trump-Putin talks: Ukraine’s fate on the line appeared first on Deutsche Welle.
