Trump-Zelenskyy live updates: Trump says he has begun arrangements for Putin-Zelenskyy meeting

[ad_1] After assembly with European leaders and Zelenskyy on the White Home on Monday, Trump held a name with Putin and indicated he had made progress towards considered one of his main targets: orchestrating a three-way assembly between Putin, Zelenskyy and himself.

“I referred to as President Putin, and started the preparations for a gathering, at a location to be decided, between President Putin and President Zelenskyy,” Trump mentioned in a social media put up, including that after that engagement, he would be a part of the 2 for trilateral talks.

“This was an excellent, early step for a Warfare that has been happening for nearly 4 years,” Trump added.

President Donald Trump leads Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and European leaders by means of the Cross Corridor of the White Home in Washington, August 18, 2025.

Aaron Schwartz/Pool/EPA/Shutterstock

The Kremlin issued its personal readout of the decision, saying each Trump and Putin have expressed “help for the continuation of direct negotiations between the Russian and Ukrainian delegations.”

“The thought was mentioned that the extent of representatives from the Ukrainian and Russian sides needs to be elevated. This refers back to the representatives who take part within the aforementioned direct negotiations,” in keeping with a press release issued by a prime Putin aide, which made no point out of a one-on-one between Putin and Zelenskyy.

If Trump can certainly persuade Putin to fulfill head-to-head with Zelenskyy, it could be a marker of potential progress — one which has eluded the Trump administration for months.

U.S. officers labored to deliver Putin and Zelenskyy collectively in Might for a high-level assembly hosted in Turkey. Putin finally didn't attend the talks, sending a lower-level delegation of Russian diplomats in his place.

Later that month, the Kremlin additionally rebuffed an try to coordinate a gathering between the leaders on the Vatican.

The Kremlin has additionally engaged in a number of obvious stall techniques to push off direct engagement with Ukraine, akin to insisting that either side produce a doc detailing their situations for peace after which taking weeks to supply mentioned doc—just for it to record the identical maximalist calls for that Ukraine and the West have repeatedly dismissed.