U.S. President Donald Trump said Friday he plans to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin “very shortly” at a soon-to-be-announced location to discuss reaching an end to the war in Ukraine, which Trump said there was “a real shot” at achieving.
Trump confirmed steps toward a meeting with Putin at the White House as Canada said it intends to lower the price cap on Russian oil, alongside Britain and the European Union, to exert “renewed pressure” on Moscow to end the war it started more than three-and-a-half years ago with its invasion.
Friday also marked Trump’s deadline for the Kremlin to make peace or face additional sanctions.
Despite no end to fighting on the ground, Trump expressed optimism that there was progress being made toward ending the conflict.
“I think we’re getting very close,” he told reporters, adding that first “we’re going to have a meeting with Russia.”
“I’ll be meeting very shortly with President Putin. It would have been sooner, but I guess there’s security arrangements that unfortunately people have to make. Otherwise, I’d do it much quicker. He’d like to meet as soon as possible. I agree with it, but we’ll be announcing that very shortly.”
Trump also appeared to partially confirm a report earlier Friday from Bloomberg that a peace deal backed by the U.S. and Russia would cement Russia’s territorial gains in Ukraine, though the U.S. president suggested Ukraine could also regain some territory.
“It’s very complicated, but we’re going to get some back, we’re going to get some switched,” he said. “There’ll be some swapping of territories to the betterment of both, but we’ll be talking about that either later or tomorrow or whatever.”
If it happens, Trump’s meeting with Putin would be the first U.S.-Russia summit since 2021, when former U.S. president Joe Biden met Putin in Geneva.
On Thursday, Putin said he hoped to meet with Trump as early as next week, possibly in the United Arab Emirates. The White House said it was still working through the details of any potential meetings.
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