Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin will meet in “coming days,” says a Kremlin aide after the US president threatened to hike sanctions hitting Russia.
Preparations are underway for the summit after US special envoy Steve Witkoff flew to Moscow for talks with the Russian president.
It would be the first summit between leaders of the two countries since 2021.
"At the suggestion of the American side, an agreement was essentially reached to hold a bilateral meeting at the highest level in the coming days, that is, a meeting between President Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump," said Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov
"We are now beginning concrete preparations together with our American colleagues," Interfax news agency quoted him as saying.
A further summit could be held between Trump, Putin and Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky to try to move towards a peace deal.
But former British Defence Secretary Sir Ben Wallace argued that Britain or France should be at the meeting between “bullies” Trump and Putin with Mr Zelensky to prevent them from forcing a “rotten” deal on Ukraine to end the war.
On Wednesday, the White House said the US president and Russian leader could meet as soon as next week, as the US threatens to impose secondary sanctions to pressure Moscow to end the conflict.
Such a face-to-face meeting would be the first between a sitting US and Russian president since Joe Biden met Putin in Geneva in June 2021, some eight months before Russia launched the biggest attack on a European nation since World War Two.
Putin and Ukrainian President Mr Zelensky have not met since December 2019 and make no secret of their contempt for each other.
The New York Times reported that Trump told European leaders during a call on Wednesday that he intended to meet with Putin and then follow up with a trilateral involving the Russian leader and Mr Zelensky.
“There’s a good chance that there will be a meeting very soon,” said the US president.
But Sir Ben was sceptical about the likely outcome of such a summit and argued Britain or France, the two European nuclear powers, should be at it.
“Both Trump and Putin are known to be bullies and I don’t think two bullies versus Zelensky, who is a brave man, but I don’t think would necessarily produce the right outcome,” he said.
“Those people with skin in the game and that is Europeans as well as Ukraine and the United States, should be part of that peace-making process.”
Putin has repeatedly snubbed Trump’s efforts to end the conflict, by stepping up attacks on Ukraine and dragging his feet over peace moves.
Sir Ben stressed that Putin’s demands to end his war are so “unrealistic”, including the international community recognising seized Ukrainian territory as Russian, and the de-arming of Ukraine, that it was unlikely that a meeting would lead to any long-term progress towards peace.
“Europe will face the consequence of another rotten Trump deal,” he added.
“The Trump deal of Afghanistan was rotten and look what happened as a result of that.”
The details of a possible summit emerged following a meeting on Wednesday between Putin and US special envoy Steve Witkoff that Trump described as having achieved “great progress” in a Truth Social post, although later said he would not call it a breakthrough.
A Kremlin aide said the talks were “useful and constructive.”
The diplomatic moves come two days before a deadline set by Trump for Russia to agree to peace in Ukraine or face new sanctions.
Trump has been increasingly frustrated with Putin over the lack of progress towards peace and has threatened to impose heavy tariffs on countries that buy Russian exports, including oil.
Mr Zelensky said he believed pressure had worked on Russia and Moscow was now more “inclined” to a ceasefire.
“The pressure on them works. But the main thing is that they do not deceive us in the details - neither us nor the US,” Mr Zelensky said in his nightly address.
Trump took a key step toward punitive measures on Wednesday when he imposed an additional 25% tariff on imports from India, citing New Delhi’s continued imports of Russian oil.
The new measure raises tariffs on some Indian goods to as high as 50% — among the steepest faced by any U.S. trading partner. India’s external affairs ministry called the decision “extremely unfortunate.”
Since the two sides resumed direct peace talks in May, Russia has carried out its heaviest air attacks of the war, killing scores of people in the capital Kyiv alone. Trump last week called the Russian attacks “disgusting.”
Ukraine continues to strike Russian refineries and oil depots, which it has hit many times.
