Donald Trump insisted Vladimir Putin ‘is not going to mess around with me’ on the eve of their crunch summit.
The eyes of the world will be on Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Anchorage, Alaska, where the two men are due meet at 8.30pm UK time on Friday.
It will be the first time any major Western leader, aside from Putin’s friend Viktor Orban, has met with the dictator since his illegal full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
From the Oval Office on Thursday night, the US President said he would be able to know if the meeting is likely to prove productive in the first few minutes.
‘If it’s a bad meeting it will end very quickly,’ he said. ‘And if it’s a good meeting we’re going to end up getting peace very quickly.’
Asked if he felt Putin has a ‘strong hand’, Mr Trump said: ‘Well, he came to our country.’
He said he believes the dictator ‘would like to see a deal’ adding: ‘If I weren’t president, in my opinion, he would much rather take over all of Ukraine but I am president and he’s not going to mess around with me.’
For the first time, he suggested European leaders may also be present at any second meeting with Mr Zelensky.
He also blamed Russia for the war, saying: ‘Everybody’s to blame, Putin is to blame, they’re all to blame.’
It comes as Putin is gearing up to test its nuclear-powered, nuclear-armed cruise missile after the US president warned him of ‘severe consequences’ if the war continues.
Experts say recent satellite images show intense preparations at the Pankovo test site on Novaya Zemlya, a remote archipelago in the Barents Sea.
The pictures, taken in recent weeks by commercial satellite firm Planet Labs, reveal a surge in personnel, equipment, ships and aircraft linked to earlier tests of the 9M730 Burevestnik, known to NATO as the SSC-X-9 Skyfall.
Mr Trump said it is his preference for the potential second meeting to take place at the same location in Alaska.
The US President also vowed that there will be no peace deal without Volodymyr Zelensky present in a boost for Ukraine.
And he confidently gave himself a 75 per cent chance of success in his one-on-one with the Russian tyrant.
On Thursday Mr Trump was keen to emphasise that Friday is simply laying the groundwork for a trilateral meeting that will include Mr Zelensky.
‘Depending on what happens with my meeting, I’m going to be calling up President Zelensky, and let’s get him over to wherever we’re going to meet,’ he told Fox News.
‘The second meeting is going to be very, very important, because that’s going to be a meeting where they make a deal.’
He added: ‘This meeting sets up like a chess game. This meeting sets up a second meeting, but there is a 25 per cent chance that this meeting will not be a successful meeting.’
Making clear that it will be down to Ukraine to decide its own fate, Mr Trump added: ‘I’m not going to negotiate their deal. I’m going to let them negotiate their deal.’
Despite nervousness from security and intelligence experts who believe Putin is playing him, the US President appeared confident the dictator won’t mess him around.
‘I believe now, he’s convinced that he’s going to make a deal,’ he said. ‘He’s going to make a deal. I think he’s going to, and we’re going to find out.’
But Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov tampered down expectations for a breakthrough, saying it would be a ‘big mistake’ to predict the results of the negotiations.
More details emerged of the summit on Thursday.
The two leaders will meet at 11.30am local time and have a one-on-one with only their respective translators present.
After that delegations from each country will join for a ‘working breakfast’ before a press conference.
Thursday night flight radar showed the first of the Russian government planes landing at Anchorage International Airport in Alaska.
America had to temporarily lift certain sanctions on Russian transactions to allow them to visit the city which is the closest point from America to Russia, lying just 3 miles (4.8km) away.
Mr Trump has been leant on heavily by Europe to push for an immediate ceasefire at the start of negotiations, before territorial disputes.
Putin will push to delay any end to hostilities as long as possible given his forces are gaining territory by the day.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said there ‘will have to be some conversation about security guarantees’ in order to achieve peace.
But he added: ‘I think the president’s hope is to achieve some stoppage of fighting so that those conversations can happen.’
While in recent days Mr Trump has been tempered by Western leaders, it remains to be seen the effect the former KGB man will have once he gets the US President on his own.
On Thursday Putin continued his charm offensive, praising the Trump administration for making ‘quite energetic and sincere efforts to stop the hostilities’.
He also suggested that ‘long-term conditions of peace between our countries, and in Europe, and in the world as a whole’ could be reached under an agreement with the US on nuclear arms control.
Mr Trump’s former top Russia advisor Fiona Hill warned that he is making a mistake meeting the tyrant one-on-one.
She told the Telegraph: ‘Putin will lure you in in a moment. He likes to do the two guys chatting routine, but what he’s really doing is making you complicit in all kinds of things he wants.’
Ms Hill counselled Mr Trump when he met Putin at the Helsinki Summit in 2018 and said it went so badly she contemplated faking a seizure to shut it down.
‘He was convinced that if he sat down with Putin, he’d sort things out, man to man, without the encumbrance of any pesky analysts or aides,’ she said.
The meeting followed largely the same format as Friday, with a two-hour one-on-one followed by a press conference.
When asked if he believed US intelligence agencies or Putin about Russian election interference, Mr Trump horrified his aides by responding: ‘President Putin says it’s not Russia. I don’t see any reason why it would be.’
Mr Trump has insisted on Mr Zelensky not being present at Friday’s summit, fearing that he would be a distraction, the Wall Street Journal reported.
He has admitted that the US must provide Ukraine with security guarantees as part of a peace settlement, but said this cannot involve NATO.
On Thursday, Mr Zelensky was seen embracing Sir Keir Starmer before they shared a cup of tea on a visit to Downing Street ahead of the crunch talks.
The Ukrainian said it was a ‘good, productive meeting’ where they ‘discussed in considerable detail the security guarantees that can make peace truly durable if the United States succeeds in pressing Russia to stop the killings and engage in genuine, substantive diplomacy.’
Sir Keir said afterwards that the two leaders ‘agreed there had been a powerful sense of unity and a strong resolve to achieve a just and lasting peace in Ukraine’.