Donald Trump could meet with Vladimir Putin next week to discuss a potential ceasefire in Ukraine, a White House official has said.
The official told the Associated Press that Trump was open to meeting both Putin and Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky, but cautioned that a meeting had not been scheduled yet and no location agreed on.
Speaking to reporters at the White House, Trump said there was “a good chance” of a leaders’ summit between Putin and Zelensky, which would be their first meeting since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
The face-to-face meeting would also be the first between a sitting US and Russian president since Joe Biden met Putin in Geneva in June 2021, some eight months before Russia launched the biggest attack on a European nation since the Second World War.
The plans were disclosed in a call with European leaders, according to the New York Times, who cited two people familiar with the plan.
Earlier, Trump said his envoy Steve Witkoff made “great progress” in a meeting with Putin in Moscow, adding: “Everyone agrees this War must come to a close, and we will work towards that in the days and weeks to come.”
