Trump threatens Putin with "serious consequences" if he doesn't stop the war in Ukraine.

US President Donald Trump threatened Wednesday of "serious consequences" if Russian President Vladimir Putin does not halt the war in Ukraine following their summit on Friday in Alaska.

"Yes, there will be very serious consequences," he responded when asked by the press during an event at the Kennedy Center in Washington.

Trump and Putin will meet at a military base in Anchorage, Alaska, after several months in which the Republican has expressed frustration with the Kremlin's refusal to halt bombing in Ukraine and threatened to impose new sanctions on Russia, which already faces tough restrictions imposed by the West.

The Republican admitted that he cannot convince Putin to stop the attacks against Ukrainian civilians, as he has already tried to do during their phone conversations, but insisted that he wants to "end the war."

Trump also stated that if the summit with Putin goes well, a trilateral meeting will be held almost immediately, which will also include Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky , who has insisted that he cannot be excluded from the peace negotiations.

"If the first one goes well, we'll have a quick second meeting . I'd like to do it almost immediately. It will be a meeting between President Putin, President Zelensky, and me," he said.

The US president assured that this second meeting, if it takes place, would be more important than the first .

Trump also described the call he had on Wednesday with Zelensky and European leaders, prior to the summit with Putin, as "very good." The president pledged to communicate with them again after Friday's meeting.

Putin has not met with a US president since the summit with Joe Biden in June 2021 in Geneva, Switzerland, and the last time he met with Trump was in June 2019 in Osaka, Japan, during the Republican's first term.