Russian President Vladimir Putin is taking additional steps toward meeting with President Donald Trump to bring an end to the Ukraine war.
On Saturday, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov revealed new details about the highly-anticipated meeting between the two world leaders, stating that “a dialogue on strategic stability and arms control is possible when we see visible shifts for the better in American policy,” and adding that that talks could include broad discussion about global issues, including the Middle East.
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Planning for the meeting is still at an early stage and pulling the event off will require “the most intensive preparatory work,” Ryabkov said.
U.S. and Russian officials are set to hold preliminary talks within the next two weeks as a precursor to a meeting between Trump and Putin. Such a gathering would be the second preliminary meeting that has occurred, as senior diplomats from Washington and Moscow already held constructive discussions this week in Saudi Arabia.
Serious discussions about holding a person-to-person meeting between the two leaders have been building steam since Feb. 12, when Trump had a 90-minute conversation with Putin on the phone, launching serious negotiations between the U.S. and Russia to end the Ukraine war.
At the time, Trump said the leaders had agreed to meet, and floated the possibility of holding talks in Saudi Arabia. Holding the meeting in Moscow is not on the table, Trump announced Friday, although he has said the two leaders will visit each other’s countries at some point.
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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has expressed confidence that Trump can push Putin to secure a peace agreement. “I think he’s [Putin] really a little bit scared about President Trump,” the Ukranian leader said on Feb. 16.
Steve Witkoff, one of Trump’s top foreign policy advisors, personally met with Putin during a trip to Moscow earlier this month.
“I spent a lot of time with President Putin, talking, developing a friendship, a relationship with him,” Witkoff said following their discussions.
Trump has broken with the Biden administration’s stance on the conflict, which placed blame for the Ukraine war solely on Russia and supplied Kyiv with critical funding to keep its fight against Moscow alive.
The primary aim of the Trump administration has been to bring a swift end to the war. And the president has often pointed the finger at Zelensky for taking actions the White House has said prolonged the war, which has killed and wounded roughly a million people in Russia alone.
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On Friday, the U.S. released a draft United Nations resolution, further distinguishing its response to the Ukraine war from the Biden administration and from the position of the European Union.
The draft called for “a swift end to the conflict and further urges a lasting peace between Ukraine and Russia.” The U.S. proposal stood in opposition to a rival Ukrainian-backed resolution, which issued a harsher stance on Russia and called on Putin to “immediately, completely, and unconditionally withdraw all of its military forces from the territory of Ukraine.”