Sources: Trump tells European leaders he will not negotiate Ukrainian territory with Putin

We begin tonight with a question that could decide the immediate fate of Ukraine and the future of Europe and the NATO alliance. Namely, which Donald Trump will show up at the summit with Vladimir Putin in Anchorage, Alaska less than two days from now? Will it be the one who spoke today with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and European leaders telling them sources say that he would not negotiate Ukrainian territory with Vladimir Putin?

Or will the Donald Trump who shows up Friday be the one who just two days ago said he might be okay with the idea of Ukraine having to give up some of its territory for peace?

There'll be some land swapping going on. I know that through Russia and through conversations with everybody. To the good, for the good of Ukraine. Good stuff, not bad stuff. Also some bad stuff.

For both. He didn't specify who would be negotiating that land swapping, as he called it. He also did not acknowledge that the land in question was taken by a foreign aggressor. He did, however, add that, quote, we're going to see what the parameters are and then I'm going to call up President Zelensky and European leaders. Today, the president warned yet again of potential severe consequences for Russia.

Will Russia face any consequences if Vladimir Putin does not agree to stop the war after

your meeting on Friday?

Yes, they will.

What will the consequences be?

There will be consequences.

Sanctions, tariffs?

There will be, I don't have to say, there will be very severe consequences.

The president also said that if all goes well at the summit, he'd like to immediately arrange a follow up.

And we'll have a quick second meeting between President Putin and President Zelensky and myself. If they'd like to have me there,

the president said Friday summit would be setting the table for this second meeting. His press secretary calls it a listening exercise for him and the White House has been downplaying expectations for the last several days. For Russia's part, a Kremlin foreign ministry spokesman says Moscow's position is unchanged. It's not dropping any territorial claims on eastern Ukraine. And a close Putin aide says that a second meeting following Alaska is expected to take place on Russian soil. I want to go to CNN chief White House correspondent and anchor of the source,

Caitlin Collins. So what else did the president have to say about this summit?

Well, I think, Anderson, really the question are what the president's expectations are or strategy is going into this summit. And today, one thing he made clear about a potential trilateral summit that would happen with Putin, Trump,

and Zelensky coming after this. He said he would like for it to happen quickly, but he also made clear, Anderson, that he believes it's conditioned on what he hears from the Russian leader on Friday and warning about those severe consequences if Putin doesn't come to Alaska preparing to end this war in Ukraine. Obviously, there's been no indication from Putin that he's prepared to do that. We've seen him continuing to strike in Ukraine. And two things that the president was asked about today stood

out and kind of seemed to foreshadow what we should expect to see potentially on Friday, which is, one, he was asked if he can convince Putin to stop killing Ukrainian civilians. And he noted that he has tried to get that to happen before. They have had conversations about this. And then, after those conversations between Trump and Putin ended, Russia continued striking Ukraine. And so the president seemed to suggest that he could not convince him to do that. And then, on the other front, he was also asked about that New York Times reporting

about Russia breaching federal court systems here in the United States, with highly sensitive national security info involved in that, and whether or not he'd confront Putin over it. He basically responded, Anderson, reminiscent of the way that he has previously on Russia interfering in U.S. elections, saying, you know, yes, Russia hacks, the United States does it, too,

and the United States is better at it. And so, I don't know. There are a lot of key questions going into to what Friday is going to look like

and what the takeaways for President Trump are going to be. Do we know what it's going to look like actually? I mean physically? I mean we know the base now or you know we learned last night where it's going to

take place, how long it's going to be? It's at Elmendorf, yeah. I think one thing that the White House is looking at from officials I've spoken to, some of them who are around the last time Trump met with Putin in Helsinki, is always expected to go longer than it's scheduled for. We'll see the schedule probably come out likely tomorrow. Trump will leave Washington on Friday. Obviously, meetings that happen between the two of them, you typically go much longer with the Russian leader. Obviously, he talks a lot. And there are translators also in the room for part of that.

The White House did confirm to me there will be a one-on-one portion with Trump and Putin in the room, likely translators as well, as we've seen before, then it'll open up to where you'll see more aides inside the room, people like the Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, and other top national security aides. And so I think the question is, when they come out of that, one thing we don't know yet is,

will it be a joint press conference, like we saw in Helsinki? Obviously, we were both there covering that. Or, you know, as in when Geneva, when President Biden went and met with President Putin, they held separate press conferences following that meeting. And so a real question of what the format there looks like and what we hear from them,

because those are often the most candid moments when we really find out what happened inside that room and what went on and whether the president thinks that this is going to be momentum forward to doing what he's trying to do,

which is bring the war in Ukraine to an end. Kayla Collins, thanks very much. We'll see you at the top of the hour for The Source. Joining me right now is Ambassador John Bolton. He was the National Security Advisor during the first Trump administration, was in the room for the first summit between the President and Vladimir Putin in Helsinki in 2018 that we were just talking about. He also served as the U.S. Bush. Ambassador, do you believe President Trump is going to heed the appeals of Zelensky and European leaders and not negotiate control of Ukrainian territory, not make a unilateral

ceasefire deal with Putin? Well, I think this virtual summit they had today is sort of like a short-term vaccination. He probably came out of it thinking in those terms, but it'll depend on how the meeting goes with Putin. I think Putin has the initiative here, and I think what he's going to try and do is show to Trump that he has a peace plan and that it's sincere, even though I don't think it

will be, but he's going to try and convince Trump and try and bring him back on his side. I think it's going to be a difficult task with Putin because I think intentionally or unintentionally he did irritate Trump, to put it mildly, but he's going to try to work his KGB training to bring him back. And I think that could involve negotiation. You know, there's a diplomatic term to say, well, we're not really negotiating, we're

having an exchange of views. And so they'll exchange views on things like territory and issues like that and and it could get pretty specific

President Trump threatened Russia with severe consequences if there's not movement toward a peace deal do you buy that?

Well, he has threatened before obviously tariffs on Russia Which I think the Russians think is hollow given the low amount of exports annually to the US, but secondary tariffs on countries primarily buying oil and gas from Russia. They have slapped a 25% tariff on India, although it hasn't gone into effect yet. I can tell you the reaction in India to that,

particularly with no tariff slapped on China, which bought off a lot more oil and gas from Russia, is the Indians are incandescent about this. And there's talk of Putin coming to India later this year. There's talk of Prime Minister Modi of India going to China for the first time since 2018.

Obviously, both Moscow and Beijing are going to try to bring India closer to them. I mean, this could have negative consequences because it wasn't well thought through. I mean, just could have negative consequences because it wasn't well thought through.

What, I mean, just from your experience seeing these two leaders in the same place back in Helsinki, what did you take away from that? What did you learn?

Well, in the one-on-one they had in Helsinki, not very much came out of it, which I thought was a good thing. Putin did a lot of talking about Syria. They exchanged a few things. Trump did make the point, as Putin admitted in the subsequent press conference, that the U.S. position was that the annexation of Crimea that had been carried out by Russia in 2014

was illicit. So Trump can make the points if he wants to. But I think what Putin, part of what Putin's gonna try and do here is make this a bigger discussion than Ukraine. I think he's gonna talk about potential for US investment in rare earths in Russia, oil investments,

to get on Trump's wavelengths about bigger economic opportunities. He may, there's been speculation that Putin may come and say, you know, we need a better bilateral relationship here. And one of the key things is that the New START nuclear weapons treaty expires in 2026.

Let's agree today to start negotiations immediately on a successor treaty. I think Trump would jump at that. So you have to watch what the bounds of the playing field are gonna be, and I think Putin, as his effort to show

that he and Donald are good friends again, is gonna try and make it as broad as possible.

CNN's reported that small groups of Russian troops in purest parts of Ukraine's defenses in the eastern part of the country. Russia appears to be making a late push to try to get as much territory as possible before the summit. Do you think that is linked to kind of a,

you know, making a statement before they meet?

Yeah, I mean, I think it's clearly an effort to shape the battlefield and have that affect the summit. Honestly, the Russians have been so incompetent in three and a half years of this war, even if they've made a breakthrough, they don't apparently teach their officers

how to do maneuver warfare. This could be a significant advance, but based on three and a half years of experience with Russian incompetence, I wouldn't put a lot into it.

President Trump also said that he thinks this summit could be followed, what he said, was almost immediately by meeting with Putin and Zelensky.

Do you think that's likely? I don't think it's likely. Look, I don't think on actual substance the Ukrainian and Russian positions are anywhere close. And in fact, I think that feeds into one of Putin's alternative strategies, which is this European insistence that before there are any negotiations,

there has to be a ceasefire. I think this is a trap for Ukraine. Assuming, and it's a big assumption, that the Europeans can continue to supply all the military assistance that Ukraine needs, I would say they should try and have negotiations

without a ceasefire, without fixing the front lines as a new line of demarcation, and particularly not put a peacekeeping force in place. Because I think if they try that, you sit down for negotiations after a ceasefire, that ceasefire line becomes the new Russian-Ukrainian border, and 20 percent of Ukraine is going to be behind that ceasefire line. to be behind that ceasefire line.

That's not a good look for Ukraine.