{"id":326592,"date":"2025-08-08T01:03:10","date_gmt":"2025-08-08T01:03:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/326592\/"},"modified":"2025-08-08T01:03:10","modified_gmt":"2025-08-08T01:03:10","slug":"trump-says-putin-doesnt-have-to-meet-with-zelenskyy-before-their-sit-down","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/326592\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump says Putin doesn’t have to meet with Zelenskyy before their sit-down"},"content":{"rendered":"

President Donald Trump <\/a>said Thursday that a meeting between Ukraine\u2019s Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Russian leader Vladimir Putin wasn\u2019t a condition for him to meet with Putin in what would be their first in-person encounter of Trump\u2019s second term.<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s remarks came hours after a White House official said that Putin and Zelenskyy must meet in order for a summit with Trump to occur.<\/p>\n

The Kremlin said earlier in the day that a meeting between Trump and Putin had been agreed in principle and would happen in the \u201ccoming days.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the suggestion of the American side, an agreement in principle was made to hold a bilateral meeting at the highest level in the coming days,\u201d Putin\u2019s longtime foreign policy aide Yury Ushakov said in an audio statement.<\/p>\n

At the same time, Moscow all but dismissed <\/strong>Trump\u2019s proposal for a three-way summit involving Putin and Zelenskyy, continuing the Kremlin\u2019s long-standing resistance to such a sit-down.<\/p>\n

The idea of a Trump-Putin-Zelenskyy meeting \u201cfor some reason was mentioned by Washington yesterday\u201d but \u201cnot specifically discussed,\u201d Ushakov said Thursday. <\/strong>The Russian side had \u201cleft this option completely, completely without comment.\u201d<\/p>\n

Asked by a reporter in the Oval Office on Thursday afternoon whether Putin needed to meet with the Ukrainian president before sitting down with Trump, the U.S. president said, \u201cNo, he doesn\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement shortly before Trump\u2019s Oval Office remarks that \u201cthe Russians expressed their desire to meet with President Trump, and the President is open to this meeting.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cPresident Trump would like to meet with both President Putin and President Zelensky because he wants this brutal war to end,\u201d she said, adding that the White House is \u201cworking through the details of these potential meetings and details will be provided at the appropriate time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s efforts to meet with Putin are part of his campaign promise to resolve Russia\u2019s war in Ukraine, and his wider \u201cAmerica First\u201d pledge to end involvement in foreign conflicts altogether.<\/p>\n

But Trump \u2014 who once said he could end the war in 24 hours \u2014 has found the reality more difficult.<\/p>\n

On meeting Zelenskyy, Putin said earlier Thursday he had \u201cnothing against it \u2014 it is possible \u2014 but for this to happen, certain conditions must be created. Unfortunately, such conditions are far away yet,\u201d he added. In the past, he has described Ukraine\u2019s government as illegitimate, saying he would only meet Zelenskyy during the \u201cfinal\u201d phase of negotiations.<\/p>\n

Putin suggested that he could meet with Trump in the United Arab Emirates. Asked about which side proposed the meeting, he added, \u201cInterest was shown on both sides. Who said what first? It is no longer important.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"President Donald Trump said Thursday that a meeting between Ukraine\u2019s Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Russian leader Vladimir Putin wasn\u2019t…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":326593,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7655],"tags":[332],"class_list":{"0":"post-326592","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-russia","8":"tag-russia"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114990455597823922","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/326592","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=326592"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/326592\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/326593"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=326592"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=326592"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=326592"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}