WASHINGTON: Donald Trump said he could meet with Vladimir Putin \u201cvery soon,\u201d following what the US president described as highly productive talks in Moscow between his special envoy and the Russian leader.<\/p>\n
The potential summit was discussed in a call between Trump and Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky that, according to a senior source in Kyiv, included NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte and the leaders of Britain, Germany and Finland.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a good chance that there will be a meeting very soon,\u201d Trump told reporters Wednesday at the White House, when asked when he would meet the Ukrainian and Russian leaders.<\/p>\n
He gave no indication where the meeting with Putin might take place. It would be the first US-Russia leadership summit since former president Joe Biden met with his counterpart in Geneva in June 2021.<\/p>\n
The New York Times and CNN, citing people familiar with the plan, said Trump plans to sit down with Putin as early as next week, and then wants a three-way meeting with the Russian leader and Zelensky.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt seems that Russia is now more inclined to agree to a ceasefire; the pressure on them is working. But the main thing is that they do not deceive us or the United States in the details,\u201d Zelensky said on Wednesday evening.<\/p>\n
Trump\u2019s phone call with Zelensky came after US envoy Steve Witkoff met Russian leadership in Moscow earlier in the day for talks described by the Kremlin as \u201cproductive\u201d \u2014 with Trump\u2019s deadline looming to impose fresh sanctions over Russia\u2019s war in Ukraine.<\/p>\n
\u201cGreat progress was made!\u201d Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform, adding that afterward he had briefed some European allies.<\/p>\n
\u201cEveryone agrees this War must come to a close, and we will work toward that in the days and weeks to come,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Minutes later, however, a senior US official said that \u201csecondary sanctions\u201d were still expected to be implemented in two days\u2019 time.<\/p>\n
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Witkoff was returning with a ceasefire proposal from Moscow that would have to be discussed with Ukraine and Washington\u2019s European allies.<\/p>\n
He also cast caution on the timeline for a Trump-Putin meeting, saying there was \u201ca lot of work ahead,\u201d adding it could be \u201cweeks maybe.\u201d<\/p>\n
Trump, who had boasted he could end the conflict within 24 hours of taking office, has given Russia until Friday to make progress toward peace or face new penalties.<\/p>\n
Three rounds of Russia-Ukraine talks in Istanbul have failed to make headway on a ceasefire, with the two sides far apart in their demands.<\/p>\n
Russia has escalated drone and missile attacks against its neighbor, a US and European Union ally, to a record high and accelerated its advance on the ground.<\/p>\n
\u201cA quite useful and constructive conversation took place,\u201d Putin\u2019s aide Yuri Ushakov told journalists, including AFP, after the three-hour meeting with Witkoff.<\/p>\n
The two men exchanged \u201csignals\u201d on their positions, Ushakov said, without elaborating.<\/p>\n
Zelensky confirmed his call with Trump and confirmed European leaders had taken part, although he did not name them.<\/p>\n
Trump has voiced increasing frustration with Putin in recent weeks over Russia\u2019s unrelenting offensive.<\/p>\n
The White House has not officially outlined what action it would take against Russia, but Trump told reporters it plans to impose \u201ca lot more secondary sanctions\u201d targeting Russia\u2019s key trade partners, possibly targeting China.<\/p>\n
Earlier in the day he had ordered steeper tariffs on Indian goods over New Delhi\u2019s continued purchase of Russian oil.<\/p>\n
Without explicitly naming Trump, the Kremlin on Tuesday slammed \u201cthreats\u201d to hike tariffs on Russia\u2019s trading partners as \u201cillegitimate.\u201d<\/p>\n
Russia\u2019s campaign against Ukraine since February 2022 has killed tens of thousands of people, destroyed swaths of the country and forced millions to flee their homes.<\/p>\n
Moscow has demanded that Ukraine cede more territory and renounce US and EU support if it wants the fighting to stop.<\/p>\n
Kyiv is calling for an immediate ceasefire, and Zelensky last week urged his allies to push for \u201cregime change\u201d in Moscow.<\/p>\n
The Witkoff visit came as Moscow-Washington tensions are running high.<\/p>\n
Trump said he had ordered two nuclear submarines to be moved following an online row with former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev, and that they were now \u201cin the region.\u201d<\/p>\n
Moscow then said that it was ending a self-imposed moratorium on nuclear-capable intermediate-range missiles, suggesting that it could deploy such weapons in response to what it alleged were similar US deployments within striking distance of Russia.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
WASHINGTON: Donald Trump said he could meet with Vladimir Putin \u201cvery soon,\u201d following what the US president described as highly productive talks in Moscow between his special envoy and the Russian leader. The potential summit was discussed in a call between Trump and Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky that, according to a senior source in Kyiv, …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":85015,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-85014","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85014","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=85014"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85014\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":85016,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85014\/revisions\/85016"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/85015"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=85014"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=85014"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=85014"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}