Washington — President Trump is working to coordinate a meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, which would be the first face-to-face interaction between the two leaders since Russia invaded Ukraine more than three years ago.
Asked about arranging the meeting on Tuesday, Mr. Trump said on Fox & Friends that he would let Putin and Zelenskyy meet first before getting involved himself, saying “they haven’t been exactly best friends.”
“I hope President Putin is going to be good, and if he’s not, that’s going to be a rough situation,” Mr. Trump said. He noted that he’s hopeful Zelenskyy will “do what he has to do,” saying he has to “show some flexibility also.”
Mr. Trump’s efforts come one day after an extraordinary series of meetings at the White House between the U.S. president, Zelenskyy and European leaders. In a display of unity, Zelenskyy and the European leaders stressed the importance of security guarantees in a peace deal, which Mr. Trump said could come with U.S. coordination.
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Attention has now turned to a possible summit between Putin and Zelenskyy. After Monday’s meetings, Mr. Trump said he called Putin to set up the meeting, and he “picked it up very happily,” despite the late hour in Russia. Mr. Trump called it a “very good call.”
“I told him that we’re going to set up a meeting with President Zelenskyy, and you and he will meet, and then after that meeting, if everything works out OK, I’ll meet and we’ll wrap it up,” Mr. Trump said. He added that it takes “two to tango,” and that “they have to have somewhat of a relationship, otherwise, we’re just wasting a lot of time.”
Zelenskyy told CBS News shortly after leaving the White House that a date had not been set to meet with Putin, although German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said it could be within the next two weeks. In a post on X Tuesday, Zelenskyy called the talks in Washington “truly a significant step toward ending the war and ensuring the security of Ukraine and our people.”
“We are already working on the concrete content of the security guarantees,” Zelenskyy said. “Today, we continue coordination at the level of leaders. There will be discussions, and we are preparing the relevant formats.”
A Russian spokesperson would only say that high-level talks would take place, but would not confirm that Putin would be involved.
Mr. Trump, who met with Putin in Alaska last week, expressed urgency around the timing of the next meeting, suggesting that waiting too long would result in thousands of deaths. In what appeared to be a hot mic moment Monday, Mr. Trump told French President Emmanuel Macron that Putin “wants to make a deal for me.”
The president outlined on Fox that he has been surprised that Zelenskyy and Putin are “getting along a little bit better than I thought,” adding that “they’re the ones that have to call the shots.”
“We’re going to find out about President Putin in the next couple of weeks, that I can tell you, and we’re going to see where it all goes,” Mr. Trump said. “It’s possible that he doesn’t want to make a deal.”
Meanwhile, security guarantees for Ukraine emerged as a key issue during Monday’s meetings, with Zelenskyy calling them a “starting point towards ending the war.”
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Monday that the U.S. will work with European and other allies to provide security guarantees for Ukraine after the war, although he did not provide specifics. And Macron said discussions on what the U.S. is willing to provide could begin as soon as Tuesday.
On the security guarantees, Mr. Trump said the European leaders are “willing to put people on the ground,” and that “we’re willing to help them with things, especially, probably if you could talk about by air because there’s nobody has the kind of stuff we have.” But the president added that “I don’t think it’s going to be a problem.”
“There will be some form of security,” Mr. Trump said. “It can’t be NATO, because that was a — that’s just not something that would ever, ever happen.”
contributed to this report.
