After meeting with European leaders and Zelenskyy in the White House on Monday, Trump made a call with Putin and indicated that he had progressed towards one of his main goals: orchestrate a three -way meeting between Putin, Zelenskyy and himself.
“I called President Putin and started the arrangements for a meeting, in a place to determine, between President Putin and President Zelenskyy,” Trump said in a publication on social networks, adding that after that commitment, he would join the two for trilateral conversations.
“This was a very good step for a war that has been happening for almost four years,” Trump added.
President Donald Trump directs the president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy and European leaders through the White House Hall in Washington, on August 18, 2025.
Aaron Schwartz/Pool/EPA/Shuttersock
The Kremlin issued its own reading of the call, saying that both Trump and Putin have expressed “support for the continuation of direct negotiations between the Russian and Ukrainian delegations.”
“The idea was discussed that the level of representatives of the Ukrainian and Russian part should be increased. This refers to the representatives who participate in the aforementioned direct negotiations,” according to a statement issued by a Putin assistant, who did not mention one by one between Putin and Zelenskyy.
If Trump can convince Putin to meet Zelenskyy, it would be a marker of possible progress, one that has eluded the Trump administration for months.
American officials worked to gather Putin and Zelenskyy in May for a high -level meeting organized in Türkiye. Putin finally did not attend the conversations, sending a lower level delegation of Russian diplomats instead.
Later that month, the Kremlin also rejected an attempt to coordinate a meeting between the leaders of the Vatican.
The Kremlin has also been involved in multiple apparent tactics of positions to boost direct commitment to Ukraine, such as insisting that both parties produce a document that details their conditions for peace and then take weeks to produce that document, only to list the same maximalist demands that Ukraine and the West have repeatedly ruled out.
On Monday, Zelenskyy again expressed his willingness to meet with Putin in a three -way format.
“We are ready for the trilateral meeting,” he said.
-ABC News’ Shannon Kingston
