President Donald Trump on Wednesday threatened “severe consequences” against Russia if Vladimir Putin did not agree to stop his war on Ukraine
“There will be consequences,” Trump said at the Kennedy Center in Washington as he took questions on his meeting on Friday with Russia’s president in Alaska.
Trump did not elaborate on what those consequences would be. When asked if they would include sanctions or tariffs, Trump only said he didn’t have to say.
The comments came after a virtual conference between Trump, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and European leaders. Trump described the conversation with the leaders as “very friendly” and European leaders said afterward Trump told them he would press Putin for a ceasefire.
President Donald Trump takes a question from the press during a visit to the Kennedy Center in Washington, August 13, 2025.
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Zelenskyy, speaking in Berlin on Wednesday after the call, said he advised Trump and other officials that Putin is “bluffing” in pursuing peace.
“I told my colleagues, the U.S. president and our European friends, that Putin definitely does not want peace. He wants the occupation of our country. And we all really understand that. Putin will not be able to deceive anyone. We need further pressure for peace. Not only American, but also European sanctions,” Zelenskyy said.
“We talked about the meeting in Alaska,” Zelenskyy added. “We hope that the central topic of the meeting will be a ceasefire. An immediate ceasefire. The U.S. president has repeatedly said this. He suggested to me that after the meeting in Alaska we will have contact. And we will discuss all the results, if there are any. And we will determine the next mutual steps.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz attend a talk of European leaders with the US President on the Ukraine war ahead of the summit between the US and Russian leaders, August 13, 2025.
John MacDougall/Pool/AFP via Getty Images
Though details of Friday’s meeting are still being ironed out, Putin and Trump are scheduled to meet at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Anchorage, a White House official confirmed to ABC News.
Trump on Wednesday said it was not his call to not invite Zelenskyy to Friday’s summit, and that he next wants to see a meeting between Zelenskyy and Putin as well as the U.S. if necessary.
“There’s a very good chance that we’re going to have a second meeting, which will be more productive than the first, because the first is — I’m going to find out where we are and what we’re doing,” Trump said.
Asked if he believes he could convince Putin to stop targeting civilians in Ukraine, Trump said no and repeated the frustration he’s expressed about Putin in the past few weeks.
Trump at the same time suggested a second meeting won’t take place if he doesn’t get what he needs from Putin.
“Now, there may be no second meeting because if I feel that it’s not appropriate to have it because I didn’t get the answers that we have to have, then we’re not going to have a second meeting,” Trump said.
Russian President Vladimir Putin attends a meeting with head of the Federal Taxation Service Daniil Yegorov at the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia August 13, 2025.
Vyacheslav Prokofyev/Pool via Reuters
Zelenskyy is pushing for for a three-way meeting between Russia, Ukraine and the United States, arguing it is “impossible to solve this without Ukraine.”
European governments have expressed their support for Ukraine in any coming peace negotiations, urging Trump to facilitate European and Ukrainian involvement in any such discussions.
French President Emmanuel Macron said on Wednesday that Trump “was very clear on the fact that the what the United States wants is to obtain a ceasefire during this meeting in Alaska.”
“The second element that was very clearly expressed by President Trump is that the territorial matters from Ukraine can and will only be negotiated by the Ukrainian president,” Macron continued. “This is the position that we support, and it has been very clearly expressed by President Trump, and so this heralds our meetings in the future.”
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said “real progress” was made in the virtual meeting and said the coalition was ready to support Friday’s meeting between Trump and Putin.
Starmer also said the group is ready to implement plans if a ceasefire is reached, including security guarantees for Ukraine once the hostilities have stopped.
A woman walks past a heavily damaged residential building following a Russian strike in the town of Bilozerske, Donetsk region of Ukraine, on August 12, 2025.
Genya Savilov/AFP via Getty Images
During a news conference in Moscow on Wednesday, the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs deputy spokesperson Alexei Fadeev said Russia considers “the consultations requested by the Europeans as politically and practically insignificant.”
Fadeev also said Russia’s stance on ending the war in Ukraine has not changed since Putin laid out his conditions last year: the full withdrawal of Ukrainian troops from parts of the Ukrainian regions of Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson that they still control, and Ukraine abandoning its plans to join the NATO alliance.
Fadeev told reporters that the upcoming meeting between Putin and Trump in Alaska will allow the two leaders to focus on discussing all current issues between their countries, from the Ukraine war to the normalization of relations.
Long-range strikes by Russia and Ukraine continued overnight into Wednesday.
Ukraine’s air force said Russia launched 49 drones and two North Korean-made ballistic missiles into the country overnight, of which 32 drones and both missiles were shot down or suppressed. Russia’s Defense Ministry, meanwhile, said its forces shot down 63 Ukrainian drones overnight.
ABC News’ Kelsey Walsh, Natalia Kushnir, Anna Sergeeva, Yulia Drozd, Hannah Demissie, Morgan Winsor and Joe Simonetti contributed to this report.
