'Good chance' of Trump and Putin meeting in coming days for Ukraine talks

by · TheJournal.ie

US PRESIDENT DONALD Trump has said there is a “good chance” of him meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in the near future.

“There’s a good chance that there will be a meeting very soon,” Trump told reporters, after the White House confirmed he was open to a meeting with Putin to discuss an end to Russia’s war against Ukraine.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said earlier that considerable work lies ahead to overcome “many impediments” to a possible meeting between Trump and Putin.

“Today was a good day, but we got a lot of work ahead. There’s still many impediments to overcome, and we hope to do that over the next few days and hours, weeks maybe,” Rubio told Fox Business.

A meeting today between Putin and US special envoy Steve Witkoff in the Kremlin concluded after around three hours, Russian state media reported, citing the Kremlin.

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The talks came ahead of Trump’s Friday deadline for Russia to halt its war on Ukraine or face new sanctions.

“A quite useful and constructive conversation took place,” Putin’s aide Yuri Ushakov said after the talks.

Meanwhile, a Russian attack that set ablaze a holiday camp in central Ukraine killed two people and wounded another dozen, local authorities said.

The central Zaporizhzhia region has been targeted in increasingly frequent and deadly Russian attacks.

Emergency services shared images showing firefighters putting out flames in single-storey cottages and the bodies of those killed and hurt in the attack on the blood-stained ground.

The regional governor said two people were killed and that 12 were wounded, including four children.

“There’s no military sense in this attack. It’s just cruelty to scare people,” President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on social media, adding that hundreds had been left without electricity after Russian attacks further south.