Key takeaways:
- President Donald Trump has expressed his frustrations with the Russian leader over the past several weeks over Russia’s ongoing war with Ukraine.
- Trump indicated on Wednesday he is open to met if Putin also meets with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, according to a White House official.
- If the meeting does take place it would be the first for the two leaders in Trump’s second term.
The Kremlin said Thursday that a meeting between U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin has been agreed to and could take place “in the coming days”.
Kremlin aide Yury Ushakov said both parties are already working on preparations, saying the goal is for the meeting to take place next week.
“At the suggestion of the American side, an agreement in principle was made to hold a bilateral meeting at the highest level in the coming days,” Ushakov said in a statement.
Ushakov did not say where the meeting would take place, only that it has been agreed upon and will be “announced later”.
The news of the meeting comes one day before Trump’s deadline to Putin, giving him an ultimatum to either end the war with Ukraine or face new economic sanctions.
Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff traveled to Russia and met with Putin on Wednesday, hoping to come to an agreement with Moscow on a deal to end the war.
However, a key component of the meeting appears to be missing: Zelenskyy. That is by design based on Ushakov’s statement.
“As for a three-way meeting, which for some reason Washington was talking about yesterday, this was just something mentioned by the American side during the meeting in the Kremlin. But this was not discussed. The Russian side left this option completely without comment,” he said.
Editor’s note: This is a breaking news story and will be updated.
