A meeting between Putin and Trump is possible this month, says the Kremlin.
Putin and Trump's predecessor, Joe Biden, held a summit in June 2021. That was the last time leaders of the US and Russia met.
Reuters - Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President Donald Trump could meet this month, although the first face-to-face meeting between a Russian and a U.S. leader since 2021 may take longer to prepare, the Kremlin said on Wednesday.
Trump said on Tuesday that he would likely meet with Putin this month and dismissed Ukraine's concerns about being left out of US-Russia negotiations in Saudi Arabia, while suggesting that Kiev might have reached an agreement with Russia sooner.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the meeting in Riyadh focused primarily on bilateral ties between Russia and the US, but that it was a "very, very important step" toward reaching an agreement on the war in Ukraine, which is about to enter its third year.
"But this is the first step... Naturally, it's impossible to solve everything in a day or a week. There's a long way to go," Peskov stated.
Asked if a meeting between Putin and Trump could take place this month, Peskov said, according to Interfax: "Possibly. And possibly not."
Putin and Trump's predecessor, Joe Biden, held a summit in Geneva in June 2021. That was the last time US and Russian leaders met face-to-face, although Biden and Putin did have a phone call in February 2022 and messages were passed through intermediaries.
Trump altered Western policy toward Russia and Ukraine, ordering talks with Russia without Ukraine or the European powers, speaking with Putin, and discussing lowering the price of oil—of which Russia is a major exporter.
Trump says he wants to end the war and believes Putin wants a deal. But he has yet to define his plan to end a conflict that has left parts of Ukraine devastated, killed or injured hundreds of thousands of people, and heightened fears of a direct confrontation between Russia and the United States, the world's two largest nuclear powers.
The talks in Riyadh were the first that the US and Russia held to seek an end to the war, the deadliest in Europe since World War II.
