Russian President, Vladimir Putin has disclosed that he hopes to meet next week with US President, Donald Trump, possibly in the United Arab Emirates.
The news came on the eve of a White House deadline for Moscow to show progress toward ending the 3-year-old war in Ukraine.
Putin made the announcement in the Kremlin after his meeting with Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the President of the UAE. He stated that it didn’t matter who initiated the meeting, adding that “both sides expressed an interest.”
Putin’s Foreign Affairs Adviser, Yuri Ushakov had said earlier that a summit could possibly take place next week at a venue that has been decided “in principle.”
Ushakov brushed aside the possibility of Ukraine President, Volodymyr Zelenskyy joining the meeting, something the White House had 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.”
Yuri Ushakov
Ushakov added that US Special Envoy, Steve Witkoff’s suggestion of a meeting including Ukraine’s leader “was not specifically discussed.”
However, a White House official stated that a Trump-Putin meeting would not happen if the Russian leader does not agree to meet with Zelenskyy.
Speaking of Zelenskyy’s possible involvement, Putin said that he has mentioned several times that he wasn’t 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.
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 will only accept a settlement on his terms.
Also, Kirill Dmitriev, the Head of Russia’s sovereign wealth fund who met with Witkoff on Wednesday, said that 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.
Trump-Putin Meeting To Be First US-Russia Summit Since 2021
The meeting would be the first US-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 US-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 as well as more than 12,000 Ukrainian civilians, according to the United Nations.
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.
However, he recently has expressed increasing exasperation with Putin, criticizing the Kremlin leader for his unyielding stance on US-led peace efforts, and has threatened Moscow with new sanctions.
A Trump-Putin meeting on the war would also be a departure from the Biden administration’s policy of “nothing about Ukraine without Ukraine” — a key demand from Kyiv.
Meanwhile, a new Gallup poll found that Ukrainians are increasingly eager for a settlement that ends the fight against Russia’s invasion.
The enthusiasm for a negotiated deal is a sharp reversal from 2022 — the year the war began — when Gallup found that about three-quarters of Ukrainians wanted to keep fighting until victory.
Now only about one-quarter hold that view, with support for continuing the war declining steadily across all regions and demographic groups.
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