President Donald Trump is considering a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin as early as next week and may arrange a direct encounter with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky for an unprecedented three-way discussion.
According to The New York Times, Trump mentioned this proposal during a call with European leaders on Wednesday, following the visit of his special envoy, Steve Witkoff, who personally met with Putin at the Kremlin earlier that day.
It wasn’t immediately clear if Putin and Zelensky agreed to attend these meetings.
Press secretary Karoline Leavitt conveyed to the Daily Mail: ‘The Russians have shown interest in a meeting with President Trump, and he is open to engaging with both President Putin and President Zelensky.’
The statement allows some wiggle room for the White House in case the negotiations over a meeting blow-up in the coming days.
Trump is trying to make good on his campaign pledge to end the Ukraine war, which has been raging since Putin invaded Ukraine in February 2022.
In recent months, Trump has expressed disgust with Putin’s continued bombing campaigns of Ukraine, despite being in contact with the U.S. leader.
In July, Trump said he would give Putin 50 days to come to the table and agree to a ceasefire or Russia would face additional economic pain.
President Donald Trump intends to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin in person as early as next week, The New York Times first reported
Russian President Vladimir Putin (left) had a direct meeting earlier on Wednesday with Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff (right) at the Kremlin in Moscow.
Trump shortened that time period to just 10 days during his trip to Scotland late last month.
The clock runs out on Friday.
Trump said Wednesday, however, that he believed the Witkoff meeting had produced a breakthrough.
‘My Special Envoy, Steve Witkoff, just had a highly productive meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Great progress was made!’ he said.
‘Afterwards, I updated some of our European Allies,’ the president continued.
In his social media post, he did not disclose the potential planned meeting with Putin and a possible Trump-Putin-Zelensky summit.
Trump stated, ‘Everyone believes this War needs to end, and we will pursue that goal in the coming days and weeks,’ concluding with his signature phrase, ‘Thank you for your attention to this matter!’
Both Zelensky and Witkoff participated in Trump’s call with European leaders, which also included NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer, and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio also joined.
Trump said the meetings would only include himself, Putin and Zelensky, The Times report said, with the European leaders appearing to accept the American leader’s proposal.
The Republican president hasn’t met in-person with Putin since November 2018, when they engaged in an informal conversation on the sidelines of the G20 Summit in Buenos Aires.
The conversation occurred after Trump had cancelled his official G20 meeting with Putin over Ukraine tensions.
Since coming back into office in January, Trump and Putin have had a number of documented phone conversations, with the Russian leader even calling the president on his birthday in June.
At the same time, Putin has upped his drone and missile attacks on Ukrainian territory, signaling that he has no interest in wrapping up the war as Trump has demanded.
In turn, Trump has struck a more frustrated tone when talking about the Russian leader, crediting first lady Melania Trump with his evolution.
‘I go home and tell the first lady, “I spoke with Vladimir today. We had a wonderful conversation.” She says, “Oh really? Another city was just hit,”‘ Trump said.
Trump’s relationship with Zelensky has seemingly improved since the low-water-mark hit in late February when they clashed in front of reporters in the Oval Office.
The two leaders have met since, on the sidelines of Pope Francis’ funeral in Rome in late April.
