Trump wants to hold trilateral meeting with Zelenskyy immediately if first one with Putin goes well

 U.S. President Donald Trump has announced his intention to hold a trilateral meeting with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Vladimir Putin as soon as possible if his planned meeting with Putin in Alaska on Friday turns out to be successful.

"The second meeting – if the first one goes okey, we'll have a quick second one. I'd like to do it almost immediately, and we'll have a quick second meeting between President Putin and President Zelenskyy, and myself, if they would like to have me there," Trump said during a speech at the Kennedy Center in Washington on Wednesday.

He expressed hope that this second meeting "will be more productive than the first one, because the first one is that I'm going to find out where we are and what we're doing."

At the same time, Trump said there may not be a second meeting if he does not get answers to important questions during the summit in Alaska. "There may not be a second meeting, because if I feel that it is not appropriate to have it, because I did not get the answers that we have to have, then we are not going to have a second meeting," the U.S. president said.

He highly praised the consultations with European leaders, which took place in the format of a video conference on Wednesday, in particular, mentioning the conversation with Zelensky. "We had a very good call. He was on the call, President Zelensky was on the call. I would rate it a 10. You know, very, very friendly," Trump said.

As reported, last Friday, Trump announced that his meeting with Putin would take place on August 15 in Alaska. In particular, he stated his intention to agree on the return of part of the occupied territory to Ukraine, and also stated his intention to agree on certain "territorial swaps."

The leaders of the 26 member states of the European Union approved a joint statement in support of Ukraine on the eve of the meeting between Trump and Putin in Alaska. Only Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban did not sign the document.