Trump, Putin Meeting Up in the Air, As WH Negotiates Zelenskiy Inclusion

Mara Rudman, professor at University of Virginia's Miller Center and former national security official, says that a meeting between President Trump and Russia's President Putin could be considered progress for Putin and a potential risk for the United States.

The Kremlin said Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump are finalizing details for a meeting within the next few days, even as the White House insisted that the Russian leader still needed to agree to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy.

The US and Russia have agreed on a venue for a meeting between their leaders, to be disclosed later, and “we are starting to work on specific issues,” with the aim of holding the talks next week, Kremlin foreign policy aide Yuri Ushakov told reporters Thursday.

But a White House official cautioned that the US would not set a meeting unless Putin agreed to meet with Zelenskiy, and that no location had been set. Putin on Thursday told reporters he didn’t object to meeting Zelenskiy under the right conditions, though he said they don’t exist now.

Still, the Kremlin sought to build momentum for a meeting by suggesting plans were being completed a day after Putin met with Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff for nearly three hours of talks in the Kremlin. Trump has threatened to hit purchasers of Russian oil with secondary tariffs unless Putin agrees to a truce by Friday as the US pushes for a deal to end the war that’s now in its fourth year.

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