US President Donald Trump has said his Alaska summit with Russia's Vladimir Putin has chances to fail but was merely a prelude to a second, three-way meeting where the substantive dealmaking over the Ukraine war would happen.
Trump and his Russian counterpart will hold talks aimed at settling the Ukraine conflict at their landmark summit at a US air base outside Anchorage on Friday.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is not scheduled to take part but Trump has suggested there might be a second meeting involving both leaders if the first was successful.
"This meeting sets up the second meeting. The second meeting is going to be very, very important, because that's going to be a meeting where they make a deal," Trump told Fox News Radio on Thursday.
"And I don't want to use the word 'divvy' things up. But you know, to a certain extent, it's not a bad term, okay?"
A stepped-up Russian offensive and Zelenskyy's exclusion from Friday's meeting have heightened fears in Europe that Trump and Putin could strike a deal that forces painful concessions on Ukraine.
The US leader initially said there would be some "land swapping going on," but appeared to have walked that back after speaking with European leaders on Wednesday.
But his remarks to Fox News Radio suggested he had not taken some kind of exchange of territory off the table.
He added that he saw a "25 percent chance that this meeting will not be a successful meeting."
US-Russia nuclear arms deal
Trump said he thinks Putin is ready to make a deal.
"He's, 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.
Earlier in the day, Putin said that the United States was making "sincere efforts" to end the war in Ukraine and suggested that Moscow and Washington could agree on a nuclear arms deal as part of a broader push to strengthen peace.
According to the Federation of American Scientists, Russia and the US have estimated military stockpiles of 4,309 and 3,700 nuclear warheads respectively. China trails behind with an estimated 600.
Trump also mentioned during the Fox interview that he has three locations in mind for a follow-up meeting with Putin and Zelenskyy, though he noted that a second meeting is not guaranteed.
"Depending on what happens with my meeting, I'm going to be calling up President Zelenskyy, and let's get him over to wherever we're going to meet," Trump said.
'Up to Ukraine and Russia to agree on' deal
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, meanwhile, said a comprehensive solution to the war will take longer.
"To achieve a peace, I think we all recognise that there'll have to be some conversation about security guarantees. There'll have to be some conversation about ... territorial disputes and claims, and what they're fighting over," Rubio told reporters at the State Department on Thursday.
"All these things will be part of a comprehensive thing. But I think the President's hope is to achieve some stoppage of fighting so that those conversations can happen."
"We're going to do everything we can to achieve one, but ultimately it'll be up to Ukraine and Russia to agree to one."
