Russia says both sides affirm intention for Putin-Trump meet in Alaska on Friday, where Ukraine war set to be discussed.
The top diplomats from Russia and the United States have held a phone call ahead of a planned meeting this week between US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
In a post on Telegram on Tuesday, the ministry said that Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergey Lavrov said that the two sides had reaffirmed their intention to hold successful talks. In a statement, the US Department of State also said that “both sides confirmed their commitment to ensure a successful event”.
Speaking shortly after the announcement, White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt revealed that Trump would meet with Putin in the city of Anchorage. She said the pair would discuss ending Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
“On Friday morning, Trump will travel across the country to Anchorage, Alaska, for a bilateral meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin,” Leavitt told reporters.
She added that Trump “is determined to try and end this war and stop the killing”.
On Monday, Trump told reporters that he was “going to see” what Putin “has in mind” when it comes to a deal to end the fighting.
Trump also said he and Putin would discuss “land swapping”, indicating he may support an agreement that sees Russia maintain control of at least some of the Ukrainian territory it occupies.
Kyiv has repeatedly said that any deal that would see it cede occupied land – including the regions of Crimea, Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhia – to Russia would be a non-starter.
On Tuesday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that Putin wants Ukraine to withdraw from the remaining 30 percent of the Donetsk region that Ukraine controls as part of a ceasefire deal, saying the position had been conveyed to him by a US official.
He reiterated that Ukraine would not withdraw from its territories, noting that such a move would go against the country’s constitution and would serve only as a springboard for a future Russian invasion.
Moscow has maintained that any deal must require Ukraine to relinquish some of the territories Russia has seized since 2014. He has also called for a pause to Western aid for Ukraine and an end to Kyiv’s efforts to join the NATO military alliance.
Reporting from Washington, DC, Al Jazeera’s Kimberly Halkett said that Trump’s tone ahead of the meeting represents a shift from earlier this month, when he gave Putin an August 8 deadline to halt attacks on Ukraine or face new secondary tariffs and sanctions.
The White House is saying that the “goal of the meeting is to essentially listen to Vladimir Putin… and that is a far cry from the US president’s initial August 8 deadline, when he said that Vladimir Putin needed to accept a ceasefire”, she said.
“So there’s been a real shifting of strategy and goals in terms of what can be accomplished.”
Halkett added that Trump expected to hold a call on Wednesday with European counterparts to prepare.
Friday’s planned meeting will be the first time Putin has been in the US since 2015, when he attended the United Nations General Assembly.
The pair met six times during Trump’s first presidency, including at a 2018 summit in Helsinki, during which Trump sided with Putin – and undermined the US intelligence community – by saying that Russia did not meddle in the 2016 US election.