A gathering between Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President Donald Trump has been agreed, a Kremlin official said Thursday, the eve of a White House deadline for Moscow to point out progress toward ending the three-year-old war in Ukraine.
Putin’s foreign affairs adviser Yuri Ushakov said a summit could possibly happen next week at a venue that has been decided “in principle.”
He brushed aside the potential for Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy joining the summit, something the White House had said Trump was ready to think about. Putin has spurned Zelenskyy’s previous offers of a gathering to clinch a breakthrough.
“We propose, to start with, to give attention to preparing a bilateral meeting with Trump, and we consider it most significant that this meeting achieve success and productive,” Ushakov said, adding that U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff’s suggestion of a gathering including Ukraine’s leader “was not specifically discussed.”
It was not clear how the announcement of the meeting would affect Trump’s Friday deadline for Russia to stop the killing or face heavy economic sanctions.
The meeting can be the primary U.S.-Russia summit since 2021, when former President Joe Biden met Putin in Geneva. It could be a big milestone toward Trump’s effort to finish the war, although there’s no guarantee it will stop the fighting since Moscow and Kyiv remain far apart on their conditions for peace.
Next week is the goal date for a summit, Ushakov said, while noting that such events take time to prepare and no date is confirmed. The possible venue might be announced “a little bit later,” he said.
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Months of U.S.-led efforts have yielded no progress on stopping Russia’s invasion of its neighbor. The war has killed tens of 1000’s of troops on each side in addition to greater than 12,000 Ukrainian civilians, in accordance with the United Nations.
Western officials have repeatedly accused Putin of stalling for time in peace negotiations to permit Russian forces time to capture more Ukrainian land. Putin previously has offered no concessions and can only accept a settlement on his terms.
A gathering between Putin and Trump on the war can be a departure from the Biden administration’s policy of “nothing about Ukraine without Ukraine” — a key demand from Kyiv.
At the beginning of his second term, Trump was conciliatory toward Putin, for whom he has long shown admiration, and even echoed a few 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 recent sanctions.
Zelenskyy focuses on the small print
Zelenskyy said he planned calls with European leaders Thursday to debate the newest developments.
A ceasefire and long-term security guarantees are priorities in potential negotiation with Russia, he said on social media.
Securing a truce, deciding a format for a summit and providing assurances for Ukraine’s future protection from invasion — a consideration that must involve the U.S. and Europe — are crucial elements to deal with, Zelenskyy said.
He noted that Russian strikes on civilians haven’t eased off despite Trump publicly urging Putin to relent.
A Russian attack Wednesday within the central Dnipro region killed 4 people and injured eight others, he said.
Poll shows support for continuing the fight waning in Ukraine
A brand new Gallup poll published Thursday found that Ukrainians are increasingly longing for a settlement that ends the fight against Russia’s invasion.
The passion for a negotiated deal is a pointy reversal from 2022 — the yr the war began — when Gallup found that about three-quarters of Ukrainians desired 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.
The findings were based on samples of 1,000 or more respondents ages 15 and older living in Ukraine. Some territories under entrenched Russian control, representing about 10 per cent of the population, were excluded from surveys conducted after 2022 as a consequence of lack of access.
Because the start of the full-scale war, Russia’s relentless pounding of urban areas behind the front line has killed greater than 12,000 Ukrainian civilians, in accordance with the United Nations. On the 1,000-kilometre (620-mile) front line snaking from northeast to southeast Ukraine, where tens of 1000’s of troops on each side have died, Russia’s larger army is slowly capturing more land.
In the brand new Gallup survey, conducted in early July, about seven in 10 Ukrainians say their country should seek to barter a settlement as soon as possible. Zelenskyy last month renewed his offer to fulfill with Putin, but his overture was rebuffed.
Most Ukrainians don’t expect a long-lasting peace anytime soon, the poll found. Only about one-quarter say it’s “very” or “somewhat” likely that lively fighting will end inside the following 12 months, while about seven in 10 think it’s “somewhat” or “very” unlikely that lively fighting might be over in the following yr.
—Hatton reported from Lisbon, Portugal. Amelia Thomson-Deveaux contributed from Washington.
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