Trump ripped for excluding Ukraine from Russia summit

On the eve of their highly anticipated Alaska summit, President Donald Trump said he believes Russia’s President Vladimir Putin is ready to end the war in Ukraine, Knewz.com can report. But U.S.-based supporters of Ukraine are slamming the meeting for leaving Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky on the outside looking in.

The Ukrainian president has doubled down on efforts this week to prevent any deal between the U.S. and Russia that leaves his country vulnerable to a future attack. Meanwhile, as Trump was getting ready to chat with Putin, he said he was also looking forward to a second summit — this time with Zelensky at the table as well. “I think it’s going to be a good meeting, but the more important meeting will be the second meeting that we’re having,” Trump told reporters. “We’re going to have a meeting with President Putin, President Zelensky, myself, and maybe we’ll bring some of the European leaders along. … Maybe not. I don’t know that.”

One prominent group of Ukraine supporters based in the U.S. questioned the decision to wait. Mykola Murskyi, advocacy director at Razom for Ukraine, exclusively told Knewz.com, “No decisions about Ukraine can be made without Ukraine at the table. Ukrainians share President Trump’s goal of peace, but history shows that Putin will take an opportunity to rearm and prepare for his next offensive.”

Trump took the bold step of threatening Russia with “very severe consequences” if Putin doesn’t agree to end the war. However, a top Russian advisor says foreign efforts are underway to discredit and disrupt a planned summit. “Undoubtedly, a number of countries interested in continuing the conflict will make titanic efforts to disrupt the planned meeting between President Putin and President Trump,” Russia’s investment envoy Kirill Dmitriev wrote in a Telegram post. Several NATO countries in Europe expressed their skepticism about the possibility of a peace deal, but Dmitriev refused to elaborate or reveal which nations might be making nefarious plans.

Trump announced the hastily organized summit in a post on his Truth Social platform a week earlier. “The highly anticipated meeting between myself, as President of the United States of America, and President Vladimir Putin, of Russia, will take place next Friday, August 15, 2025, in the Great State of Alaska,” he wrote. “Further details to follow. Thank you for your attention to this matter!” Meanwhile, Putin’s aides confirmed their RSVP for the summit in a statement, pointing out that Alaska is a perfect meeting spot. “Russia and the United States are close neighbors; they share borders. So it does make sense if our delegation simply crosses the Bering Strait and if such an important and expected meeting between the two leaders takes place specifically in Alaska,” they said. “Incidentally, it is in Alaska and in the Arctic that the economic interests of our countries converge and prospects for implementing large-scale mutually beneficial projects arise.”