MOSCOW – Russian President Vladimir Putin is travelling to the Pacific Coast in an armoured limo ahead of his highly anticipated summit with Donald Trump in Alaska, with a massive convoy sweeping through sealed-off roads.
Footage shows a long line of black vehicles speeding along a road in Magadan, flanked by flashing police cars and trailed by what appears to be an ambulance.
The tight security comes as Putin sat down with Trump yesterday for their first face-to-face meeting since 2018.
The talks will begin at 11am, Alaska time (19:00 BST) and is set against the backdrop of the ongoing war in Ukraine, with a focus on finding a path towards a ceasefire.
Trump extended the invitation at the Russian leader’s suggestion, but the US president has since been defensive and had warned that the meeting could be over within minutes if Putin does not compromise.
Every word and gesture was closely watched by European leaders and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who was not included and has publicly refused pressure from Trump to surrender territory seized by Russia.
Trump, usually fond of boasting of his deal-making skills, called the summit a ‘feel-out meeting’ to test Putin, whom he last saw in 2019.
“I am president, and he’s not going to mess around with me,’’ Trump told reporters at the White House on Thursday.
“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,” said Trump, who gave the summit a one in four chance of failure.
Trump had promised to consult with European leaders and Zelenskyy, saying that any final agreement would come in a three-way meeting with Trump and the Ukrainian president to ‘divvy up’ territory.
Trump has voiced admiration for Putin in the past and faced some of the most intense criticism of his political career after a 2018 summit in which he appeared cowed and accepted Putin’s denials of US intelligence findings that Russia interfered in the 2016 US election.
Before his return to the White House, Trump boasted of his relationship with Putin, blamed predecessor Joe Biden for the war and vowed to bring peace within 24 hours.
But despite repeated calls to Putin and a stunning February 28 White House meeting in which Trump publicly berated Zelenskyy the Russian leader has shown no signs of compromise.
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