00:00President Trump setting the stage for a potential second meeting with Russia's Vladimir Putin
00:04if the summit on Friday goes well.
00:07He's also issuing an urgent new warning as they prepare to meet face-to-face.
00:12Listen to this.
00:14Will Russia face any consequences if Vladimir Putin does not agree to stop the war after your meeting on Friday?
00:22Yes, they will.
00:23There will be consequences.
00:25Sanctions, tariffs?
00:26There will be. I don't have to say. There will be very severe consequences.
00:29No specifics, but tough talk that comes just hours after speaking with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky
00:35and other European leaders this morning.
00:37Zelensky says he wants an immediate ceasefire before a peace deal can be negotiated.
00:42For Ukraine, peace cannot come soon enough.
00:45Russian forces have been launching a brutal offensive to claw territory away,
00:49and the U.N. says that July saw the highest number of civilians killed in Ukraine
00:53since the first months of Russia's full-scale invasion back in 2022.
00:57Let's take you now live to Kiev with CNN's Nick Payton Walsh.
01:01Nick, is there hope in Ukraine that this time, somehow, negotiations with Russia will be different?
01:08I think there's a desperate need for peace, but I think there's little hope that Russian President Vladimir Putin genuinely wants that.
01:19That has been the undertone of everything that Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky has been saying over the past days.
01:24And borne out by Russian advances, Ukrainian intelligence about Russia preparing for further military manoeuvres.
01:30Look, we heard from Zelensky today reaffirming that if any deal is struck, they do not want to give up,
01:36or they will not give up parts of the Donetsk region that Russia is now fiercely fighting for,
01:40that it's not managed to occupy by force, even if it's in exchange for a ceasefire.
01:45They and their European allies want a ceasefire first.
01:48German Chancellor Friedrich Mertz, who was the host of Zelensky today in Berlin,
01:54he was clear that the legal recognition of occupied parts of Ukraine as being Russian territory,
01:59as Russia's recently adjusted constitution suggests, they are, that is not, quote, on the table.
02:05And Mertz warned that there could be serious decisions made in Alaska in the meeting between Trump and Putin.
02:10Trump himself changing the tone of expectations ahead of that meeting, 24 hours of playing it down.
02:16Well, now he's suggesting, look, there could potentially very quickly afterwards be a trilateral summit between Trump, Putin and Zelensky.
02:24If Trump likes what Putin says during that first meeting, I should point out that trilateral format is something that Putin has persistently rejected
02:32and indeed turned down directly the offer of a meeting like that from Zelensky, backed by Trump in May in Istanbul.
02:38Has much changed since then? Not really, except he's got a bilateral with Trump and his forces are doing way better on the battlefield.
02:46European leaders today desperately trying to shore up their position with President Trump.
02:50A European official I spoke to said that they felt after that call with Trump, the European leaders felt that the threat of sanctions,
02:58secondary sanctions against India or possibly China, the major customers of Russian oil, that that threat is, quote, on.
03:04Remember, Indian sanctions kick in about two weeks from now unless Trump turns them off.
03:09That may be a threat hanging over this.
03:11But really, real anxiety as to what Trump and Putin concocts together in Alaska, their relationship so unpredictable, so impenetrable.
03:19Boris?
03:20Nick Payton Walsh, live for us in Kyiv.
03:22Thank you so much for the update.
03:23Let's discuss all of this further.
03:25We have CNN Global Affairs Analyst Kim Dozier and former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine John Herbst.
03:30He's now Senior Director of the Atlantic Council's Eurasia Center.
03:33Thank you both for being with us.
03:34Kim, I want to start with you because you just noted that there was an announcement from Treasury,
03:38essentially a perfunctory step that would allow Vladimir Putin to enter U.S. territory, given all the sanctions that are in place.
03:45Beyond that, I also want to ask you about some new CNN reporting.
03:48President Trump appearing to say to European leaders that he would push for an unconditional ceasefire in Ukraine during the meeting,
03:56but also saying that Ukrainian territory is not his to negotiate.
04:01What do you make of all that?
04:02Well, that's important because the worry inside Ukraine, I've been on a bunch of Ukrainian messaging channels,
04:08which is where I first saw that financial statement.
04:11The worry is that Trump will negotiate about Ukraine without Ukraine and cede territory in return for a ceasefire that no one thinks is going to last.
04:21Russia is on record as having broken multiple ceasefires since 2014 and again since 2022,
04:27so no one wants Trump to put them into a position of agreeing to something that will give up Donetsk,
04:36the parts of Donetsk that Russia is asking for.
04:39It's about 3,500 square miles of territory that Russian troops haven't won on the battlefield.
04:45Now, that statement that I was talking about, they temporarily lifted some of the sanctions,
04:52it looks like to me, according to this statement from Treasury, to allow the summit to take place.
04:59There are a lot of sanctions against Russian officials personally as well,
05:04so it looks like it's a temporary lifting specifically to allow the two men to meet in Alaska.
05:10It says at the last line, this doesn't lift sanctions against Russia.
05:14Ambassador Herbst, I want to bring you to this conversation because one of the things that was pretty remarkable about today's meeting,
05:20or I should say press conference that the president held, was that this first meeting is expected to take place on Friday.
05:28But if it goes well in his estimation, that the quote was,
05:31there is the potential for a quick second meeting that would be trilateral,
05:35which would include both Putin and Vladimir Zelensky.
05:39What was your thought on that?
05:40Well, it's clear that President Trump and his team have begun to readjust after the substantial departure in their policy last Friday,
05:53when they went from major pressure on Russia across the board to Trump waiving the application of the sanctions following Putin failing to meet the August 8 deadline to stop shooting,
06:07and opting for a summit instead with painting rather rude what that summit could produce.
06:13There's a realistic readjustment, lowering of expectations, and even Trump pointing out correctly that, you know,
06:19maybe you can't trust Putin, and if he's not going to suggest he's willing to make peace, we have to put pressure on him again.
06:26Ambassador, I wonder what you make of Trump on one hand telling European leaders that Ukrainian territory is not his to negotiate,
06:35but then telling reporters as recently as yesterday, or maybe the day before, I believe he repeated it yesterday,
06:41that there would have to be some land swapping in order to ensure peace, that Ukraine would have to give something up,
06:47that Russia might have to give something up, even though if you hear from Kremlin officials,
06:50they are reluctant to say that they would give anything up.
06:53Look, this is a very good question. It cuts the heart of the whole matter.
07:00Trump has said for a long time that for there to be a peace, Ukraine needs to make concessions relating to territory.
07:08Russia needs to make concessions relating to Ukraine's security.
07:12Zelensky has made clear, in his acceptance of several ceasefire proposals from Trump, he's willing to do that.
07:19Putin has rejected all of Trump's ceasefire proposals and has not given any indication of willingness to compromise.
07:28I think that President Trump got so excited last week when there was a misreporting about the Witkoff-Putin meeting,
07:35and they thought that maybe the Russian position was changing.
07:38But it became clear, as clarification was sought, that Russia continues to reject all efforts at compromise
07:44and simply wants Trump to do Putin's bidding.
07:47Kim, the other thing that was remarkable about this press conference that just took place with President Trump not too long ago
07:53was that he said there would be severe consequences, right, if Putin doesn't essentially agree to end the war or get closer to that.
08:00Is that a statement that will intimidate Vladimir Putin in any way?
08:06Well, remember, he just got off the phone with the Ukrainian and European leaders.
08:10And whoever is last in his ear tends to be who sets the message in the coming hours.
08:17In the Russian media, they're also downplaying what Putin might get out of this summit,
08:22saying the best he could likely get is a promise not to impose new sanctions.
08:27So at home in Moscow, they don't want new sanctions, and they fear it.
08:31But you see the Ukrainian president trying to get in his ear, saying,
08:36this is what Putin's probably going to tell you.
08:40And by the way, he's going to tell you he's winning at the front lines
08:43because of the recent reporting of what's going on in Pokrovsk.
08:48Ukrainian officials, Zelensky, chief among them, have been at pains to explain.
08:54A number of small units of Russian soldiers, 20 to 30, have punched through,
09:00but not strong enough to hold that territory.
09:03And he says that Ukrainian troops are one by one mopping up those units.
09:07That territory that they're trying to seize is sort of the high ground in part of the Donbass.
09:11It could lead to more territorial losses.
09:14So that's why Zelensky is pretty sensitive about it.
09:18I'm curious to get your thoughts on the setting for all of this.
09:21I mean, this was kind of put together pretty quickly, kind of at the last minute.
09:26They didn't really know where they were going to host this meeting.
09:27Now we're learning that it's likely to take place at a military base.
09:32What does it mean that Vladimir Putin is now going to be on U.S. soil in a military base?
09:37It's hard for me to say. Military base.
09:38Yeah, yeah.
09:39Hey, symbolically, it's a win.
09:41You know, it's getting invited back to U.S. territory proper
09:45and having a summit with the president,
09:48getting a chance to get in the room one-on-one, we're being told.
09:51To change his mind, to educate him on things that President Trump doesn't follow closely,
09:57the history of Russia and Ukraine and when the Soviet Union fell, et cetera.
10:01It's also a symbol to Russians that, look, I can get this prestigious meeting.
10:07And last of all, a lot of Russian commentators are making a lot out of the fact
10:12that Alaska is territory that was bargained away by Russia to the U.S. in a negotiation,
10:19which is what they want Trump to do with Ukraine.
10:22So many moving parts.
10:23And again, as I said earlier, the stakes keep rising as we barrel towards Friday.
10:27Thank you, Kim, so much.
10:28Kim Dozier and Ambassador John Hurst, appreciate both of your insight.
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