After assembly with European leaders and Zelenskyy on the White Home on Monday, Trump held a name with Putin and indicated he had made progress towards one in all his main objectives: orchestrating a three-way assembly between Putin, Zelenskyy and himself.
“I known as President Putin, and commenced the preparations for a gathering, at a location to be decided, between President Putin and President Zelenskyy,” Trump mentioned in a social media put up, including that after that engagement, he would be a part of the 2 for trilateral talks.
“This was an excellent, early step for a Struggle that has been occurring for nearly 4 years,” Trump added.
President Donald Trump leads Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and European leaders via the Cross Corridor of the White Home in Washington, August 18, 2025.
Aaron Schwartz/Pool/EPA/Shutterstock
The Kremlin issued its personal readout of the decision, saying each Trump and Putin have expressed “help for the continuation of direct negotiations between the Russian and Ukrainian delegations.”
“The concept was mentioned that the extent of representatives from the Ukrainian and Russian sides needs to be elevated. This refers back to the representatives who take part within the aforementioned direct negotiations,” in keeping with a press release issued by a high Putin aide, which made no point out of a one-on-one between Putin and Zelenskyy.
If Trump can certainly persuade Putin to satisfy head-to-head with Zelenskyy, it could be a marker of potential progress — one which has eluded the Trump administration for months.
U.S. officers labored to convey Putin and Zelenskyy collectively in Might for a high-level assembly hosted in Turkey. Putin finally didn’t attend the talks, sending a lower-level delegation of Russian diplomats in his place.
Later that month, the Kremlin additionally rebuffed an try and coordinate a gathering between the leaders on the Vatican.
The Kremlin has additionally engaged in a number of obvious stall techniques to push off direct engagement with Ukraine, akin to insisting that either side produce a doc detailing their circumstances for peace after which taking weeks to provide mentioned doc—just for it to record the identical maximalist calls for that Ukraine and the West have repeatedly dismissed.
On Monday, Zelenskyy once more expressed a willingness to satisfy with Putin in a three-way format.
“We’re prepared for the trilateral assembly,” he mentioned.
-ABC Information’ Shannon Kingston
