A meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President Donald Trump has been agreed, a Kremlin official said Thursday, and it could possibly take place next week at a venue that has been decided “in principle.”
“At the suggestion of the American side, it has been agreed in principle to hold a bilateral meeting at the highest level in the coming days, Putin’s foreign affairs adviser Yuri Ushakov told reporters.
Next week is the target date for a summit, Ushakov said, while noting that such events take time to organize and no date is confirmed. The possible venue will be announced “a little later,” he said.
He also played down the possibility of Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy joining the summit meeting to discuss ending Russia’s 3-year-old invasion of its neighbor, which the White House said Trump is ready to consider.
“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.
A meeting between Putin and Trump would be their first since the Republican president returned to office this year. It would be a significant milestone in thewar, though there’s no promise such a meeting would lead to the end of the fighting, since Russia and Ukraine remain far apart on their demands.
Western officials have repeatedly accused Putin of stalling for time in peace negotiations to allow Russian forces time to capture more Ukrainian land. Putin has in the past offered no concessions and will only accept a settlement on his terms.
It was not clear whether Trump’s Friday deadline for the Kremlin to stop the killing in Ukraine still stood.
Support for continuing the fight wanes in Ukraine
A new Gallup poll published Thursday found that Ukrainians are increasingly eager for a settlement that ends the fight against Russia’s invasion.
The enthusiasm for a negotiated deal is a sharp reversal from 2022 — the year the war began — when Gallup found that about three-quarters of Ukrainians wanted to keep fighting until victory. Now only about one-quarter hold that view, with support for continuing the war declining steadily across all regions and demographic groups.
The findings were based on samples of 1,000 or more respondents ages 15 and older living in Ukraine. Some territories under entrenched Russian control, representing about 10% of the population, were excluded from surveys conducted after 2022 due to lack of access.
Since the start of the full-scale war, Russia’s relentless pounding of urban areas behind the front line has killed more than 12,000 Ukrainian civilians, according to the United Nations. On the 1,000-kilometer (620-mile) front line snaking from northeast to southeast Ukraine, where tens of thousands of troops on both sides have died, Russia’s bigger army is slowly capturing more land.
The poll came out on the eve of U.S. President Donald Trump’s Friday deadline for Russia to stop the killing or face heavy economic sanctions.
In the new Gallup survey, conducted in early July, about 7 in 10 Ukrainians say their country should seek to negotiate a settlement as soon as possible. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy last month renewed his offer to meet with Russia’s Vladimir Putin, but his overture was rebuffed as Russia sticks to its demands, and the sides remain far apart.
Most Ukrainians do not expect a lasting peace anytime soon, the poll found. Only about one-quarter say it’s “very” or “somewhat” likely that active fighting will end within the next 12 months, while about 7 in 10 think it’s “somewhat” or “very” unlikely that active fighting will be over in the next year.
Source: AP
--Agencies
