“And 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.”

“He really, I believe now, he’s convinced that he’s going to make a deal, he’s going to make a deal. I think he’s going to, and we’re going to find out,” Trump said in an interview on Fox News Radio.

Follow-up meeting with Putin and Zelenskyy

He said staying in Alaska for a three-way summit would be the easiest scenario.

Trump said it would be up to Putin and Zelenskyy to strike an agreement.

What does Trump want from Alaska talks?

The Nobel Peace Prize. Trump has openly and repeatedly sought the world’s most prestigious award, however unlikely many observers think it is that the Norwegian committee would bestow the honour on the divisive president.

At a 2018 summit, Trump stunned viewers by siding with Putin over US intelligence in denying that Russia intervened in the 2016 US election to support Trump.

What are Putin’s priorities?

Putin suggested the meeting with Trump after the US president threatened new sanctions on Russia unless it moves toward a ceasefire.

“The best-case scenario for Russia is… if they are able to put a deal on the table that creates some kind of a ceasefire, but that leaves Russia in control of those escalatory dynamics, [and] does not create any kind of genuine deterrence on the ground or in the skies over Ukraine,” said Sam Greene, director for democratic resilience at the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA).

What does Zelenskyy want for Ukraine?

For Ukraine, the best-case scenario would be no agreement between Putin and Trump and the imposition of new sanctions on Russia, she said.

In the 67th exchange since the start of the war, Russian and Ukrainian authorities say both sides have exchanged 84 prisoners of war. Credit: AP

But Herbst said Zelenskyy could accept a deal in which Russia controls what it has — without formal recognition of its conquest.