Trump Tells European Leaders He Intends to Meet With Putin and Zelensky

If the meeting goes ahead as President Trump described, it will be the first in-person summit between an American and Russian president in more than four years.

President Trump intends to meet in person with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia as soon as next week, and he plans to follow up shortly afterward with a meeting between himself, Mr. Putin and President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, according to two people familiar with the plan.

Mr. Trump disclosed his plans on Wednesday in a call with European leaders, which included Mr. Zelensky, the people said. The meetings would include only the three men, and would not include European counterparts.

Asked later Wednesday if Russia and Ukraine had agreed to the summit, Mr. Trump told reporters: “There’s a very good prospect that they will.”

Mr. Putin’s spokesman, Dmitri S. Peskov, did not respond to a request for comment, but Mr. Zelensky appeared to signal that a direct meeting was possible.

“It seems that Russia is now more committed to a cease-fire. The pressure on them is working,” Mr. Zelensky said in his evening address to the nation. “But the main thing is that they do not deceive us or the United States in the details.”

Just a meeting with Mr. Trump would represent something of a victory for Mr. Putin. Since the Ukraine invasion, he has been largely isolated by NATO leaders, who refused to deal with him directly until Mr. Trump started phone conversations with the Russian leader after coming to office. But the plan reflects Mr. Trump’s deep belief that his powers of persuasion, especially in an in-person meeting, are the only way to strike a bargain.

If the meeting goes ahead as Mr. Trump described, it would be the first in-person summit between an American and Russian president in more than four years. The last took place in June 2021 in Geneva, when President Joseph R. Biden Jr. met one-on-one with Mr. Putin.

Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, said in a statement on Wednesday that the Russians asked for the meeting. “The Russians expressed their desire to meet with President Trump, and the president is open to meeting with both President Putin and President Zelensky,” she said. “President Trump wants this brutal war to end.”

Wednesday’s call included Prime Minister Keir Starmer of Britain; President Alexander Stubb of Finland; Chancellor Friedrich Merz of Germany; Mark Rutte, NATO’s secretary general; Vice President JD Vance; Secretary of State Marco Rubio; and Mr. Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff.

Several European leaders on Wednesday’s call were surprised by Mr. Trump’s plan and expressed skepticism afterward that it would be effective, according to one official who was briefed on the call. Another person familiar with the call said the Europeans appeared to accept what Mr. Trump said. The Europeans have tried to coordinate an end to the violence between Russia and Ukraine, while supporting their European neighbor.

The people spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss a private call.

Mr. Trump shared some details of the call in a post on his social media site, saying Mr. Witkoff had met for several hours in Russia with Mr. Putin on Wednesday. He did not mention his plans for his own summits.

“Everyone agrees this War must come to a close, and we will work towards that in the days and weeks to come,” he wrote.

Mr. Trump held a one-on-one meeting with Mr. Zelensky at the funeral of Pope Francis in Rome earlier this year. The president of France, Emmanuel Macron, tried joining the meeting — which took place in St. Peter’s Basilica — but was rebuffed by Mr. Trump, who generally prefers bilateral meetings.

That instinct also led to Mr. Trump’s three meetings in his first term with Kim Jong-un, the North Korean dictator. Mr. Trump was convinced that he could talk Mr. Kim out of his nuclear weapons by promising to lift long-running sanctions. The meetings were cordial and an utter failure. Not a single nuclear weapon was turned over, and Mr. Kim now has a larger arsenal than ever.

Mr. Putin has long said he would be happy to meet with Mr. Trump, declaring in January that the two leaders should meet to “talk calmly about all areas that are of interest to both the U.S. and Russia.” But Mr. Peskov has denied in recent weeks that a summit was imminent.

Mr. Trump has been stymied for months in his efforts to find a peace agreement between Russia and Ukraine, after more than three years of war. Mr. Trump has been a skeptic of U.S. military aid to Ukraine, and he dressed down Mr. Zelensky in a remarkable Oval Office meeting earlier this year, with cameras rolling. Still, frustrated by the slow pace of talks with Russia, Mr. Trump recently authorized more arms sales to NATO allies that are intended for Ukraine.

Mr. Trump has tried giving Mr. Putin room to come to the negotiating table over several months. But more recently, he has publicly excoriated Mr. Putin, suggesting the Russian leader was simply playing him for time after repeated conversations with Mr. Witkoff.

Mr. Witkoff’s latest visit to Moscow came as Mr. Trump has threatened secondary sanctions against Russia as the war drags on. On Wednesday, Mr. Trump signed an order that would double tariffs on imports from India, to 50 percent, as punishment for its continued purchases of Russian oil.

A senior Ukrainian official with direct knowledge of the discussions this week said that they heard about some, but not all, of the features of Mr. Witkoff’s discussions in Moscow, and that they still had questions about what had been negotiated. They have asked U.S. officials for clarifications, and were told they would see more information on Thursday, the official said.

Anton Troianovski contributed reporting from Berlin, Marc Santora from Kyiv and David E. Sanger from Nuuk, Greenland.

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