US President Donald Trump has indicated he is willing to meet with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, to discuss the Ukraine war, even if Putin does not first meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. This marks a departure from Trump’s previous position, which insisted that a Putin-Zelensky meeting was a prerequisite for any summit with the Kremlin leader.
Trump had previously given Moscow until Friday to agree to a ceasefire or face a new round of sanctions. However, when asked by reporters whether this deadline still stood, Trump’s response was not definitive. He stated, “It’s going to be up to (Putin). We’re going to see what he has to say.”
Since taking office in January, Trump has been pressuring Moscow to end its military assault on Ukraine. On Thursday, the Kremlin announced that Putin was set to attend a summit with Trump in the “coming days,” but the Russian leader effectively ruled out Zelensky’s inclusion. Zelensky, in turn, insisted on Thursday that he must be involved in any talks. When asked if a Putin-Zelensky meeting was a condition for his own summit, Trump simply said, “No, he doesn’t.”
Putin has suggested the United Arab Emirates as a potential location for the summit, though this has not been confirmed by Washington. The meeting would be the first between sitting US and Russian presidents since Joe Biden met with Putin in Geneva in June 2021. Despite three rounds of direct talks in Istanbul, Russia and Ukraine remain far apart on the conditions for a ceasefire.
A Kremlin aide, Yuri Ushakov, stated that “next week has been set as a target date,” and that a venue has been “agreed upon in principle” without naming it. However, a White House official later denied that a specific venue or date had been set, while confirming that the meeting “could occur as early as next week.”
The potential summit follows a meeting between US special envoy Steve Witkoff and Putin in Moscow. Witkoff had proposed a trilateral meeting with Zelensky, but Putin appeared to dismiss the idea of direct talks with the Ukrainian leader at this time. Putin reiterated his stance that “certain conditions must be created” for such a meeting to happen and that “we are still far from creating such conditions.” Zelensky, meanwhile, in his evening address, called for Europe to be included in any potential peace talks, emphasizing that “Ukraine is not afraid of meetings and expects the same brave approach from the Russian side. It is time we ended the war.”
