White House: Russian side proposes meeting between Trump and Putin
The White House has said that the initiative to hold a meeting between the US President Donald Trump and Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin during Special Envoy Steve Witkoff’s visit to Moscow came from the Russian side.
Source: Ukrinform citing statement by White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt
Quote from Leavitt: "As President Trump said earlier today [on 6 August] on TRUTH Social, great progress was made during Special Envoy Witkoff's meeting with President Putin. [N.B. Ukrainska Pravda does not recognise Putin as president – ed.]
The Russians expressed their desire to meet with President Trump, and the President is open to meeting with both President Putin and President Zelenskyy."
Details: Leavitt also stressed that Trump is committed to ending the war.
However, she did not clarify whose initiative it was to hold a joint meeting between Trump, Zelenskyy and Putin after a possible Trump-Putin meeting.
Background:
- Trump intends to meet with Putin next week and then hold a trilateral meeting with Zelenskyy.
- On Wednesday 6 August, Witkoff held a meeting with Putin in the Kremlin, which lasted about three hours.
- Trump said that Witkoff's meeting with Putin was "productive".
- The Kremlin stated that during the meeting between Putin and Witkoff, there was an exchange of "certain signals" regarding the Russo-Ukrainian war.
- A White House official told CNN that arranging a meeting between Trump and Putin next week would be difficult.
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