President Donald Trump is planning to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin as soon as next week and could bring the Russian leader face-to-face with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
Trump shared this pitch on a phone call with European leaders Wednesday, The New York Times reported, after his special envoy Steve Witkoff met in-person with Putin at the Kremlin earlier in the day.
It wasn’t immediately clear if Putin and Zelensky agreed to attend these meetings.
In a statement to the Daily Mail, press secretary Karoline Leavitt said: ‘The Russians expressed their desire to meet with President Trump, and the President is open to meeting with both President Putin and President Zelensky.’
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.
Trump shortened that time period to just 10 days during his trip to Scotland late last month.
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) came face-to-face earlier Wednesday with President Donald Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff (right) at a meeting at the Kremlin in Moscow
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.
‘Everyone agrees this War must come to a close, and we will work towards that in the days and weeks to come,’ Trump said, using his trademark closing, ‘Thank you for your attention to this matter!’
Zelensky and Witkoff were on Trump’s call with European leaders, which included NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, British 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.
