President Trump said Friday he plans to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin soon, as he continues to advocate for a cease-fire between Russia and Ukraine.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky traveled to Turkey this week for peace talks with Russian officials but was frustrated to find that Putin had decided not to attend in-person, instead sending an adviser in his place.
Trump, who sent Secretary of State Marco Rubio in his place, said he was unsurprised that Putin didn’t attend the talks.
“They all said Putin was going and Zelensky was going. And I said, ‘If I don’t go, I guarantee Putin is not going,’ and he didn’t go,” Trump told reporters. “And I understand that, but we’re going to get it, we’re going to get it done. We’ve got to get it done.”
Asked when he would meet with Putin, Trump said, “As soon as we can set it up.”
Putin first proposed direct talks with Ukraine on Sunday during a televised address.
“We are proposing that Kyiv resume direct negotiations without any preconditions,” Putin said. “We offer the Kyiv authorities to resume negotiations already on Thursday, in Istanbul.”
Zelensky accepted the offer and traveled to Istanbul himself.
“We await a full and lasting ceasefire, starting from tomorrow, to provide the necessary basis for diplomacy,” Zelensky said on X. “There is no point in prolonging the killings. And I will be waiting for Putin in Türkiye on Thursday. Personally. I hope that this time the Russians will not look for excuses.”
But the tension between the two sides only increased when Zelensky said Putin sent “stand-in props” to negotiate for him, leading Russia’s Foreign Ministry spokeswoman to call Zelensky “a clown and a loser.”
Speaking at a business roundtable in Doha, Qatar, Trump said the war in Ukraine “has to stop.”
“We spent $350 billion there — just handed,” he said. “Nobody even knows where the money is. There’s no accounting.”
He once again called Zelensky “the greatest salesman, maybe in history” because “every time he came to the United States, he’d walk away with $100 billion.”
“That’s a good salesman, right?” Trump added. “Last time he didn’t do as well. He only got $60 billion.”