U.S. President Donald Trump said Thursday that he would meet with Vladimir Putin even if the Russian leader will not meet with Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelenskyy, in comments that suggested Washington and Moscow could soon hold a summit.
Trump's comments followed a statement from Putin earlier in the day that he hoped to meet with Trump next week, possibly in the United Arab Emirates. But the White House was still working through the details of any potential meetings, press secretary Karoline Leavitt said.
When asked by a reporter if Putin would need to meet with Zelenskyy in order to secure a meeting with the U.S., Trump said: "No, he doesn't. No."
A White House official told The Associated Press earlier Thursday that a U.S.-Russian summit would not happen if Putin did not agree to meet with Zelenskyy, but the official later said it only made the summit less likely. The official was not authorized to speak publicly and had spoken on condition of anonymity.
A meeting with Trump would be a coup for Putin, who has spurned previous offers of a face-to-face meeting with Zelenskyy and has been isolated globally since the invasion. He has long suggested a meeting with Trump to discuss ending the fighting. Trump too has repeatedly boasted that he and Putin could make a deal to end the war.
Any direct talks between them about the conflict would also renew questions about the risk of excluding Ukraine from peace efforts.
Putin's announcement came on the eve of a White House deadline for Moscow to show progress toward ending the 3-year-old war in Ukraine or suffer additional economic sanctions.
When asked Thursday at the White House whether his deadline for Friday would hold, Trump said of Putin: "It's going to be up to him. We're going to see what he has to say. It's going to be up to him. Very disappointed."
The president also touched on the killing that has continued on both sides and added, "I don't like long waits. I think it's a shame."
Speaking of possible direct talks with Zelenskyy, Putin said he has mentioned several times that he was not against it, adding: "It's a possibility, but certain conditions need to be created" for it to happen.
The Kremlin has previously said that Putin and Zelenskyy should meet only when an agreement negotiated by their delegations is close.
Ukraine fears being sidelined by direct negotiations between Washington and Moscow, and Zelenskyy said he had phone conversations with several European leaders Thursday amid a flurry of diplomatic activity. European countries have pledged to back Ukraine for as long as it takes to defeat Russia's invasion.
Putin's foreign affairs adviser, Yuri Ushakov, earlier brushed aside the possibility of Zelenskyy joining the summit, something the White House said Trump was ready to consider. Putin has spurned Zelenskyy's previous offers of a meeting to clinch a breakthrough.
"We propose, first of all, to focus on preparing a bilateral meeting with Trump, and we consider it most important that this meeting be successful and productive," Ushakov said, adding that U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff's suggestion of a meeting including Ukraine's leader "was not specifically discussed."
Putin made the announcement in the Kremlin about a possible meeting with Trump after meeting with Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the president of the UAE.
Asked who initiated the possible talks with the American president, Putin said that didn't matter and "both sides expressed an interest."
Kirill Dmitriev, the head of Russia's sovereign wealth fund who met Wednesday with Witkoff, said a Trump-Putin meeting would allow Moscow to "clearly convey its position," and he hoped a summit would include discussions on mutually beneficial economic issues, including joint investments in areas such as rare earth elements.
The meeting would be the first U.S.-Russia summit since 2021, when former President Joe Biden met Putin in Geneva. It would be a significant milestone toward Trump's effort to end the war, although there's no guarantee it would stop the fighting since Moscow and Kyiv remain far apart on their conditions for peace.
Months of U.S.-led efforts have yielded no progress on stopping Russia's invasion of its neighbor. The war has killed tens of thousands of troops on both sides and more than 12,000 Ukrainian civilians, according to the United Nations.
Western officials have repeatedly accused Putin of stalling in peace negotiations to allow Russian forces time to capture more Ukrainian land. Putin previously has offered no concessions and said he will accept a settlement only on his terms.
At the start of his second term, Trump was conciliatory toward Putin, for whom he has long shown admiration, and even echoed some of his talking points on the war. But he recently has expressed increasing exasperation with Putin, criticizing the Kremlin leader for his unyielding stance on U.S.-led peace efforts, and has threatened Moscow with new sanctions.
