A meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President Donald Trump has been agreed, a Kremlin official said on Thursday 7 August, the eve of a White House deadline for Moscow to show progress toward ending the 3-year-old war in Ukraine. Putin’s foreign affairs adviser Yuri Ushakov, quoted by AP, said a summit could possibly take place next week at a venue that has been decided “in principle.” Next week is the target date for a summit, Ushakov said, while noting that such events take time to organise and no date is confirmed. The possible venue will be announced “a little later,” he said.
He brushed aside the possibility of Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy joining the summit, 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,” Ushakov said, adding that U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff’s suggestion of a meeting 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 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 neighbour. 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. Western officials have repeatedly accused Putin of stalling for time 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.
A meeting between Putin and Trump on the war would be a departure from the Biden administration’s policy of “nothing about Ukraine without Ukraine”, a key demand from Kyiv. 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, criticising the Kremlin leader for his unyielding stance on U.S.-led peace efforts, and has threatened Moscow with new sanctions.
Zelenskyy said he planned calls with European leaders Thursday to discuss the latest developments amid a flurry of diplomatic activity. European countries must also be involved in finding a solution to the war on their own continent, he said on Telegram. “Ukraine is not afraid of meetings and expects the same bold approach from the Russian side. It is time to end the war,” he added.
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 aspects to address, Zelenskyy said, accordimng to AP.
He noted that Russian strikes on civilians haven’t eased off despite Trump publicly urging Putin to relent. A Russian attack Wednesday in the central Dnipro region killed four people and injured eight others, he said.
Since the start of the full-scale war, Russia’s relentless pounding of urban areas behind the front line has killed more than 12,000 Ukrainian civilians, according to the United Nations. On the 1,000-kilometre front line snaking from northeast to southeast Ukraine, where tens of thousands of troops on both sides have died, Russia’s bigger army is slowly capturing more land.
