Russian President Vladimir Putin has agreed to meet next week with his US counterpart, Donald Trump, in an agreement that occurred just before the ten-day ultimatum from the White House to stop the war in Ukraine expired.
"We have agreed to hold a bilateral meeting at the highest level in the coming days, that is, between Presidents Putin and Trump," announced Yuri Ushakov, Kremlin's international policy advisor, on Friday.
Putin, who has been in power for 25 years, has not met with a US president since June 2021 when he faced Joe Biden in Geneva, which did not prevent the war. Likewise, the last time he met with Trump was in June 2019 in Helsinki.
The President of Russia, who has not criticized the US President since his return to the White House, had resisted holding a summit with Trump until now, arguing that such a meeting should be carefully prepared and not just for show.
In reality, the Kremlin did not want the meeting to focus solely on Ukraine, but rather to be a summit addressing international security and strategic stability issues, as well as the division of spheres of influence, in the style of Yalta.
However, Putin's insistence on not declaring a ceasefire, even for 30 days, finally exhausted the patience of the White House - seeing it as a way to buy time to continue advancing on the front - and precipitated events. "The approximate date was set for next week, but the parties are starting to prepare for this important meeting, and it is difficult to predict how many days their preparations will take," Ushakov said.
Putin himself has stated that the United Arab Emirates is a possible scenario for the meeting with Trump. The Russian President said on Thursday that the interest in holding a summit with Donald Trump is mutual.
"Interest was shown by both parties," Vladimir Putin pointed out, who, however, has avoided confirming or rejecting a meeting with Zelenski. "I have said many times that, in general, I have nothing against it. This is possible, but for this to happen, certain conditions must be created. Unfortunately, we are still far from that," he told the press in his first statements on the US proposal for a trilateral meeting.
Yuri Ushakov, Kremlin's international policy advisor, has moved in the same direction. "We propose, first of all, to focus on preparing a bilateral meeting with Trump, and we consider it most important that this meeting be successful and productive," Ushakov said, adding that the suggestion from US Special Envoy Steve Witkoff to hold a meeting involving the leader of Ukraine "was not specifically discussed."