“I believe great progress was made with today’s telephone conversation,” Trump wrote after talking to Putin. They previously met in Alaska in August, which did not produce a diplomatic breakthrough.
“We are ready!” Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said on social media after the announcement.
Before Trump and Putin meet, U.S. officials led by Secretary of State Marco Rubio will sit down with Russian representatives next week. It's unclear where that meeting will take place.
The announcement came ahead of Trump’s meeting on Friday at the White House with Ukrainian President Volodymer Zelenskyy, who has been pressing Trump to sell Kyiv Tomahawk missiles that would allow Ukrainian forces to strike deeper into Russian territory. Zelenskyy has argued such strikes would help compel Putin to take Trump’s calls for direct negotiations between Russia and Ukraine to end the war more seriously.
With a fragile Israel-Hamas ceasefire and hostage deal holding, Trump has said he's now turning his attention to bringing the war in Ukraine to an end and is weighing providing Kyiv long-range weaponry as he looks to prod Moscow to the negotiating table.
