“The President is open to meeting both President Putin and President Selenskyj,” said Karoline Leavitt’s spokeswoman for the White House, Wednesday in Washington. Trump wanted the “brutal war” in Ukraine. The Russian side had expressed the desire for a meeting with the US President, Leavitt said. However, it neither called a date nor a place for a possible encounter.
According to the US media reports on Wednesday, Trump Putin could meet next week, followed by a three-energy with Selenskyj. First the “New York Times” reported on Trump’s plans for a quick meeting with Putin and Selenskyj. In the US broadcaster CNN it was said that Trump had informed top European politicians by phone about his intention to meet Putin soon, possibly already in the coming week. After that, a joint meeting with Selenskyj is planned.
As the AFP news agency learned from high-ranking Ukrainian circles, Chancellor Merz, NATO General Secretary Mark Rutte, Great Britain Prime Minister Keir Strandmer and Finland’s President Alexander Stubb took part in the phone call. A spokesman for the federal government confirmed the participation of Merz in the phone call, but did not provide any details about the content of the conversation.
Trump’s statements followed the visit of his special envoy Steve Witkoff in Moscow. Witkoff also met Putin there on Wednesday. This visit may open “a time window and a possibility” for a peace solution in the Ukraine War, said the head of the Federal Chancellery, Thorsten Frei (CDU), on Thursday morning in the ZDF “Morgenmagazin”. “After this long war and after these many deaths and injuries, it would be an enormous chance if we were one step forward here. There are signs that indicate.
Trump called the conversation between Putin and Witkoff “highly productive”. It was the fifth such meeting since February. Everyone agrees “that this war must be ended and we will work towards it in the coming days and weeks,” said Trump.
A personal meeting between Trump and Putin would have been the first since 2019. At that time, the two heads of state had come together on the edge of the G20 summit in Japan. In the past few months, the two heads of state had made calls several times. Putin and Selenskyj last met in Paris in December 2019. The conversation in the so-called Normandy format came about to impart French President Emmanuel Macon and the then Chancellor Angela Merkel (CDU).
The new diplomatic efforts come shortly before the end of an ultimatum on Friday that Trump had put Putin. The US President urges Russia to end the attacks on Ukraine by then. Otherwise, the US President threatens punitive tariffs against countries that continue to trade with Russia.
Trump has already imposed an additional tariff of 25 percent against India due to persistent oil imports from Russia. Similar secondary sanctions could hit China, Brazil or the EU. EU countries such as Hungary or Austria continue to receive gas and oil from Russia.
At the beginning of June there were similar hopes for movement in the Ukraine War. Even then, Trump was “open” for a meeting with Putin and Selenskyj. A planned encounter in Istanbul ultimately did not come about. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had proposed to negotiate about a ceasefire there.
In the presidential election campaign, Trump claimed that he would end the Ukraine War “in 24 hours” in the event of a re-election. After taking office in January, he initially approached Putin and snubbed Selenskyj at a meeting in the White House.
Since a meeting with Selenskyj on the sidelines of the funeral of Pope Francis in Rome at the end of April, Trump has increasingly expressed doubts that Putin “may not end the war at all, but just want to hold me down”. Later he accused Putin of “getting completely crazy” because of the ongoing attacks on Ukraine.
Last week, Trump Putin put an ultimatum and sent two nuclear submarines towards Russia as a “ultimate threat”.
