A “freeze” in the war in Ukraine may be close, the Polish prime minister said on Friday, as the White House and the Kremlin push forward with discussions for a high-level summit between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin in the coming days.
Donald Tusk’s remarks came after he spoke with the Ukrainian leader, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who has communicated with Trump and European leaders in recent days as the White House continues to try to broker an end to the three-and-a-half-year war.
“There are certain signals, and we also have an intuition, that perhaps a freeze in the conflict – I don’t want to say the end, but a freeze in the conflict – is closer than it is further away,” Tusk said during a news conference. “There are hopes for this.”
Tusk said Zelenskyy was “very cautious but optimistic” about the ceasefire, Reuters reported. Ukraine was keen that Poland and other European countries play a role in planning for a ceasefire and an eventual peace settlement, Tusk said.
Trump has said he is willing to meet Putin one on one without preconditions, including direct negotiations between Putin and Zelenskyy, stoking fears that Ukraine may be left out of negotiations for the framework of a potential ceasefire.
Bloomberg reported on Friday that the deal could cement some of Putin’s territorial gains in Ukraine, effectively freezing the battle lines in the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions. Putin has claimed four Ukrainian regions in their entirety, although much of their territory remains under Ukrainian control.
US and Russian officials were working on a deal under which Russia would halt its offensive in exchange for the territorial concessions – making it a politically fraught proposal in Ukraine, Bloomberg said.
Zelenskyy has responded by speaking with European leaders including the German chancellor, Friedrich Merz, and the French president, Emmanuel Macron, who are key conduits to Trump.
Fox News reported on Friday that the meeting could take place at the end of next week. Potential venues include Switzerland, Rome, Hungary and the United Arab Emirates, the conservative outlet said. Switzerland and Italy are parties to the international criminal court (ICC), which has issued an arrest warrant for Putin, and their law enforcement would theoretically be required to detain the Russian president. Hungary’s Viktor Orbán announced plans to withdraw from the ICC earlier this year.
Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office on Thursday, Trump said Putin did not have to meet Zelenskyy first before the US and Russian presidents could meet. “No, he doesn’t,” Trump said. “They would like to meet with me and I’ll do whatever I can to stop the killing.”
Putin said he was not ready to meet Zelenskyy, even as the Kremlin claimed preparations were under way for a bilateral summit with Trump next week.
“I have nothing against it in general, it is possible, but certain conditions must be created for this,” Putin said of a meeting with Zelenskyy. “But unfortunately, we are still far from creating such conditions.”
The US envoy Steve Witkoff had proposed a three-way meeting with Trump, Putin and Zelenskyy but the Kremlin had ignored that suggestion, said the Putin aide Yuri Ushakov, and was “focusing on preparations for a bilateral meeting with Trump in the first place”.
No venue has been set for the potential summit but Putin did mention that Dubai in the UAE was a possibility during a meeting with its leader, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan.
In the past 48 hours, White House officials have offered conflicting statements about whether Trump would agree to meet Putin. Witkoff, a close friend of Trump’s, is seen as a strong proponent of the meeting and had proposed it to Putin this week, while the national security adviser and secretary of state, Marco Rubio, later said that “a lot has to happen before [a summit] can occur”.
The wide gamut of foreign policy views in the administration, which includes JD Vance’s scepticism of Ukraine and belief that the US should turn its focus away from Europe toward more pressing threats such as China, has helped its approach appear haphazard, while Trump’s Oval Office comments suggest that the administration is still interested in holding a summit.
Last month, Trump issued an ultimatum for Putin to agree to a ceasefire or face secondary sanctions with the deadline set for this Friday. That deadline appeared in place despite plans for the summit, although the White House has not said what secondary measures it could enforce.
Trump did target India with a 25% tariff hike for purchasing Russian oil this week, singling out one of Moscow’s economic enablers in a move that New Delhi complained was unfair and selective.
Trump had grown frustrated with Putin in public in recent months as the war dragged through its third year and Putin continued to launch nightly missile and drone strikes on Ukrainian cities despite Trump’s insistence that he could strike a deal within 24 hours of becoming president.
“Putin … talks nice and then he bombs everybody in the evening,” Trump said last month. “So there’s a little bit of a problem there.”
Asked on Thursday whether the deadline still applied, Trump said: “It’s gonna be up to him. We’re going to see what he has to say. It’s gonna be up to him. Very disappointed.”
Trump last week also announced that he would reposition nuclear submarines in response to a social media post by Russia’s former president Dmitry Medvedev, who said that Trump was “playing the ultimatum game with Russia” and had taken a “step toward war”.
