Still, Trump said, “President Putin, I believe, wants to see peace, and Zelenskyy wants to see peace.” He said that, “In all fairness to President Zelenskyy, he’s getting everything he needs to, assuming we get something done.”

Trump also said that a peace deal would likely mean “there will be some swapping of territories” between Ukraine and Russia but did not provide further details.

Trump said of territory generally “we’re looking to get some back and some swapping. It’s complicated.”

“Nothing easy,” the president said. “But we’re gonna get some back. We’re gonna get some switched. There’ll be some swapping of territories, to the betterment of both.”

Analysts, including some close to the Kremlin, have suggested that Russia could offer to give up territory it controls outside of the four regions it claims to have annexed.

Pressed on if this was the last chance to make a major peace deal, Trump said, “I don’t like using the term last chance,” and said that, “When those guns start going off, it’s awfully tough to get ’em to stop.”

Exasperated that Putin did not heed his calls to stop bombing Ukrainian cities, Trump almost two weeks ago moved up his ultimatum to impose additional sanctions on Russia and introduce secondary tariffs targeting countries that buy Russian oil if the Kremlin did not move toward a settlement. The deadline was Friday.

Prior to his announcing the meeting with Putin, Trump’s efforts to pressure Russia into stopping the fighting have so far delivered no progress. The Kremlin’s bigger army is slowly advancing deeper into Ukraine at great cost in troops and armour while it relentlessly bombards Ukrainian cities. Russia and Ukraine are far apart on their terms for peace.