President Donald Trump told European leaders in a phone call on Wednesday that he plans to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky next week as he hopes to see the warring nations reach a peace deal, The New York Times reported.
Trump spoke to some of America’s European allies shortly after hearing a report from his special envoy, Steve Witkoff, who met with Putin in Moscow earlier on Wednesday. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said that during the meeting with Witkoff, Putin proposed a summit with Trump, Axios reported.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio told Fox Business Wednesday afternoon that a Trump-Putin summit is possible in the “near future.”
“If things continue to progress, an opportunity will present itself very soon for the president to meet both with Vladimir Putin and with President Zelensky at some point here, hopefully in the near future,” Rubio said. “But obviously, a lot has to happen before that can occur.”
“Today was a good day, but we got a lot of work ahead. There are still many impediments to overcome,” Rubio added.
The president reportedly said that he wanted the meeting to only include Putin, Zelensky, and himself — and no European counterparts, according to the Times. No location has been decided on for a potential summit between the world leaders. Trump’s phone call also included Zelensky, U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, and NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte.
Trump said earlier on Wednesday that Witkoff “had a highly productive meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin.”
“Great progress was made! Afterwards, I updated some of our European Allies. Everyone agrees this War must come to a close, and we will work towards that in the days and weeks to come,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
The Kremlin added that the talks between Putin and Witkoff resulted in “a very useful and constructive conversation.”
If a meeting comes to fruition next week, it would be just past Trump’s deadline for Russia to reach a ceasefire agreement with Ukraine, a deadline that hits on Friday. The president has become increasingly frustrated with Putin as the Russian dictator continues to carry out deadly strikes on Ukrainian civilian centers and has shown no sign of bringing an end to the fighting.
If Russia does not reach a peace deal with Ukraine by the end of the week, Trump has threatened to punish the country with secondary tariffs, which would be placed on nations that do business with Russia in hopes of cutting into Putin’s war chest. A U.S. official told Axios that the secondary tariffs are still expected to come down on Russia and its oil customers on Friday.
Last week, Trump also sent a stern warning to Moscow in the form of two nuclear submarines, which he said he repositioned after “inflammatory” comments from former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev.