Moscow says it expects U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin to meet for in-person talks on the Ukraine war in the coming days, but a spokesman for Putin is already pouring cold water on the notion of including Volodymyr Zelensky, a clear U.S. demand.
A venue for Trump-Putin talks has been agreed, top Kremlin Aide Yury Ushakov said in a statement on Thursday morning after what President Trump hailed as “highly productive” talks in Moscow on Wednesday.
Ushakov said in his statement that the United States had suggested a leaders’ meeting, and that as result of Wednesday’s talks “an agreement in principle was made to hold a bilateral meeting at the highest level in the coming days”. The two parties have commenced preparations for the meeting and “it is difficult to say how many days the preparation will take. But the option of holding the meeting during the next week was considered, and we are quite positive about this option”, he continued.
On where the talks are to take place — many of the U.S.-Russia meetings this year have taken place in neutral countries so far, such as in Turkey and Saudi Arabia — Ushakov noted “the venue has also been agreed upon in principle and we will inform you about it a little later.”
These remarks followed the meeting between Putin and Trump envoy Steve Witkoff at the Kremlin on Wednesday and Trump’s own comments on the process, when he said “there’s a very good chance we could be ending [this process]… There’s a good chance that there will be a meeting very soon” last night.
Trump’s spokesman Karoline Leavitt said in a statement seen by Breitbart News: “great progress was made during Special Envoy Witkoff’s meeting with President Putin. The Russians expressed their desire to meet with President Trump, and the President is open to meeting with both President Putin and President Zelensky. President Trump wants this brutal war to end”
A key ambition for the U.S. is to get Russia’s Putin and Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky in the same room for talks, with suggestions made the condition for the Trump-Putin talk being that Putin would be willing to walk into trilateral talks with Ukraine admitted immediately afterwards. On the prospects for this, President Trump said “There’s a very good prospect that they will” meet, but noted cautiously “I’ve been disappointed before with this one”.
Russia followed its usual pattern of happy talk with the U.S. in meetings followed by walking back elements it opposes in public, with Ushakov’s comments on Thursday immediately moving to make clear Putin wasn’t ready to meet Zelensky in person. He claimed the trilateral Russia-U.S.-Ukraine format “not specifically discussed” in detail and taht Russian negotiators “left this option completely, completely without comment”.
“We propose, first of all, to focus on preparing a bilateral meeting with Trump and we believe that the main thing is for this meeting to be successful and productive”, he said.
A key criticism of President Trump in recent months has been the disconnect between Russian words and actions, in particular his having constructive phone calls with President Putin feeling like they are leading to peace, but those being immediately followed by massive Russian airstrikes against Ukraine. Russia again launched strikes overnight against Ukraine but, possibly mindful of Trump’s comments, they were noticeably less intense than other recent strikes.
Per the Ukrainian air force, they encountered 112 Russian drones overnight into Thursday and neutralised 89 of them. There were no cruise or ballistic missile launches. The pace of strikes of late has otherwise been intense, and last month a Russian night-time air raid on Ukraine was so large it led to NATO air defence being activated, with 728 drones and 13 missiles flying westward.
Friday 8th, tomorrow, is President Trump’s deadline for Ukraine war peace progress. Should the President be dissatisfied, he has vowed to impose new punitive measures on Russia for its aggression. One set of measures that appears to be going forward already is punishing Russia’s global customers for energy exports, a key source of currency keeping the Russian economy and war machine afloat.
President Trump signed executive orders this week mandating that the present 25 per cent tariff rate on India — which buys Russian oil — would double to 50 per cent from August 27th.
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