The Kremlin in Moscow has confirmed an agreement on an upcoming meeting of Russian President Vladimir Putin with his US colleague Donald Trump.
US President Donald Trump and Kreml boss Vladimir Putin Probably want to meet Ukraine for the first time for the first time to end discussions about the end of the Russian attack war against Ukraine. Both sides said the time was ripe for such a summit. Day and place have not yet been determined. Putin said in the Kremlin on the sidelines of a meeting with the Emiratic President Mohammed bin Sajid that the United Arab Emirates could be a suitable place for this. Sheikh Mohammed is considered one of the important intermediaries in the war.
Putin and Trump have recently made calls. But the agreement on a reunion was relatively surprising after the U.S. President had given the Kremlin boss the ultimatum to agree to a ceasefire against Ukraine until this Friday. The fighting continues unabated.
Putin makes meetings with Selenskyj in conditions
Putin said that Russia had several friends who are ready as hosts to organize a summit. He sounded significantly more cautious when it comes to a possible three-way summit with the Ukrainian President Wolodymyr Selenskyj. He thinks such a meeting is possible, said Putin. However, the prerequisites would have to be right, and the conditions for this are still far away.
Russia has been a destructive war against Ukraine for more than three years. US President Trump had repeatedly declared that they wanted to end the war quickly. It would be the first personal meeting of a reigning US president with Putin since the summer of 2021. At that time, Trump’s democratic predecessor Joe Biden met the Kremlin chief in Geneva.
Merz and Selenskyj: Russia has to end war
Selenskyj also phoned Chancellor Friedrich Merz (CDU). According to the federal government, both honored Trump’s efforts to terminate the Ukraine War. Merz and Selenskyj agree that Russia had to end his war law -contrary agency war, it said in Berlin. Both had agreed a close exchange with European partners and the USA.
“The parameters of how this war ends will shape the security landscape of Europe for decades,” Selenskyj wrote after the phone call on the platform X. Ukraine is an integral part of Europe, which is why Europe must also be involved in discussions.
Selenskyj demands courage from Moscow
Trump first wants to meet Putin and then expand this to a three -person meeting with Selenskyj. “Ukraine is not afraid of a meeting and expects Russia the same courageous attitude,” said Selenskyj in Kiev. “It is time that we end this war.”
Merz and other European heads of government had phoned Trump on Wednesday evening. Put had previously met Putin again in Moscow – according to Kremlin, Trump’s special sent in Moscow took the conversations described as constructive and useful.
Kremlin: Preparations for meetings with Trump
Putin’s foreign policy advisor Juri Uschakow said that the US side brought Selenskyj’s participation in the summit into play. Russia did not respond. “We propose to concentrate on the preparation of the bilateral meeting with Trump and consider it important that this meeting is successful and fertile,” emphasized Uschakow. The summit is planned next week, but there is a lot to prepare.
Russia will now also inform its international partners – just as Trump had previously informed Europeans about the plans, said Uschakow. For the Kremlin, the focus is on the summit that Putin and Trump face each other as an equal partner and that after years of dusting the Russian-American relationships get started again.
The fact that Putin was now looking forward to a quick reunion with Trump came as a surprise. He had already met Trump several times during his first term as US President. The two had recently made several calls. Trump had always been publicly upset about the Kremlin chief in the past few days and accused him of a delay tactic in the Ukraine conflict. Now Putin went into the request of the US side after a meeting.
Trump targeted Kremlin trading partner
On Tuesday last week (July 29), Trump set a period of ten days and asked for a ceasefire between Moscow and Kiev during this period. If this did not happen, he announced sanctions against trading partners in Russia – and shortly afterwards India already took new punitive tariffs because of his oil transactions with Moscow. However, these should only come into force on August 27th.
With the sudden promise for a meeting with Trump, Putin has now won time again. His advisor Uschakow said Russian state media that Russia was not dealing with his course in Ukraine.
For a peaceful solution to the conflict, Moscow, among other things, had called for a waiver of Ukraine to join NATO and the assignment of the areas annexed by Moscow. So far, Selenskyj has categorically rejected the waiver of the Black Sea Peninsula Crimea, which was annexed by Russia in 2014 and the Luhansk, Donetsk, Saporischschja and Cherson, which is partly controlled by Moscow.
Moscow (dpa-Afx)