Donald Trump's meeting with Vladimir Putin may stem from adviser's 'misunderstanding'

Donald Trump's apparent attempt to downplay his chances of ending the war in Ukraine when he meets with Vladimir Putin tomorrow may stem from a fundamental misunderstanding of the situation by ally Steve Witkoff, former US National Security Adviser John Bolton has claimed.

Mr Trump will meet Putin at Joint Base Elmendorf–Richardson in Anchorage on Friday - the first time a US President has met with their Russian counterpart since Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022. With Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky unlikely to be there, Mr Trump has acknowledged that it may not be possible to strike a deal, claiming he will know "within two minutes" if one is on the cards.

But Mr Bolton, speaking via videolink from Washington told Express.co.uk he suspected there may be more to the situation that meets the eye.

He explained: "I've been trying to assess why what what is causing this kind of lack of self-confidence.

"And I think part of it may be, when Witkoff went to see Putin in Moscow last Wednesday, and both the Russian and the American side said it was Putin who said he wanted a meeting with Trump.

"What doesn't make sense is how quickly this summit was put together. Witkoff comes back, he talks to Trump, they announced it on Friday of last week and now it's going to be tomorrow."

The speed with which things had come together was "unprecedented", Mr Bolton argued.

The explanation may lie in Mr Witkoff's basic lack of understanding when it came to Russian and Ukrainian history, he suggested.

He said: "I'm not sure Witkoff knows what the provinces are in Ukraine that the Russians have occupied and and so on.

"So one of the misunderstandings apparently was that Witkoff thought that Putin might be offering to pull out of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia Oblasts.

"But what he was really saying was tell the Ukrainians to pull out because that's part of Russian territory now, which of course the Ukrainians are never going to do.

"So that that's kind of a a pretty basic mistake."

Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office at the White House, Mr Trump said: "We have a meeting with President Putin tomorrow, I think it's going to be a good meeting.

"But the more important meeting will be the second meeting that we're having. 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."

He added: "I think President Putin will make peace. I think President Zelensky will make peace. We'll see if they can get along. And if they can it will be great."

Mr Trump said the summit aims to bring peace to Ukraine, and "save a lot of lives".