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President Donald Trump has been unable to negotiate a peace deal between Ukraine and Russia, regardless of vowing to end the war on Day One of his second time period. He’s hoping a extremely anticipated sit-down with Russian President Vladimir Putin will assist change that.
Trump is assembly with Putin face-to-face in Alaska on Friday, the primary confab between the 2 leaders in Trump’s second time period. The US president has met with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky a number of occasions — together with a wildly tense public confrontation in February — spoken to each leaders by telephone and despatched high envoys to assist negotiate a ceasefire settlement. Still, Trump and different overseas leaders have mentioned it doesn’t appear to be Putin is fascinated about peace, because the warfare has dragged on for greater than three years.
While Trump usually speaks of his “very good relationship” with Putin, it’s proving to take greater than a telephone name, threatening new sanctions or calling the Russian president “absolutely CRAZY” to get him to change course in Ukraine.
With that in thoughts, Trump and White House officers have been attempting to mood expectations forward of Friday, saying it’s not up to him to make a deal. Still, the assembly marks a extra aggressive strain marketing campaign on Putin, as Trump has grown more and more annoyed with the Russian chief.
Here’s a take a look at among the main developments that led to this historic assembly: