\u201cI think Putin is tired of it. I think they\u2019re all tired of it,\u201d he added. \u201cBut you never know. We\u2019re going to find out about President Putin in the next couple of weeks. It\u2019s possible he does not want to make a deal.\u201d<\/p>\n
Trump added that after an initial Putin-Zelenskyy meeting, he was prepared to attend a trilateral meeting with both leaders to conclude an agreement.<\/p>\n
\u201cI hope that President Putin will be good, and if he is not, it is going to be a rough situation and I hope President Zelenskyy is going to show flexibility as well.\u201d<\/p>\n
On Tuesday, Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov avoided a question on whether Putin had agreed to meet Zelenskyy, saying any top-level meeting with Ukraine had to be \u201cprepared extremely carefully\u201d.<\/p>\n
Lavrov told state television Russia \u201cis not rejecting any forms of work, neither bilateral nor trilateral\u201d but insisted that summits required \u201cstep-by-step gradual preparation, starting with the expert level and thereafter going through all the required steps\u201d.<\/p>\n
European leaders, who have been coaching the Ukrainian president on handling Trump since a disastrous\u00a0meeting in the Oval Office in February, are keen that if the meeting does not happen, the blame \u2014 in Trump\u2019s eyes \u2014 falls solely on Putin.<\/p>\n
The European Commission said it welcomed \u201cthat President Putin has changed his mind on bilateral talks with President Zelenskyy\u201d and that governments on the continent would help to prepare the summit.<\/p>\n
UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said on X that there would \u201cnow be a bilateral meeting between President Putin and President Zelenskyy\u201d followed by a trilateral meeting including Trump.<\/p>\n
But some officials have doubts Putin will follow through on meeting Zelenskyy soon. <\/p>\n
Zelenskyy\u00a0said on Monday after leaving the Oval Office that he was open to \u201cany format\u201d of meeting Putin, a statement that puts the onus on the Russian president.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
He posted on Tuesday that governments were \u201calready working on the concrete content of the security guarantees\u201d and that national security advisers were in \u201cconstant contact\u201d. <\/p>\n
A further meeting of the group of leaders, including those from Germany, France, Italy and Finland, who were present at the White House would take place once the details of the security guarantees had been fleshed out, officials said.<\/p>\n
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