President Donald Trump said Monday he is uncertain whether Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Russia’s Vladimir Putin will meet soon to negotiate an end to the war, despite his repeated efforts to push for direct talks.
“I don’t know that they’ll meet,” Trump told reporters in Washington. “Maybe they will, maybe they won’t.”
Since beginning his second term in January, Trump has sought to broker peace, pressing both leaders to sit down for negotiations. Earlier this month, he hosted Putin in Alaska, and last week he met European leaders at the White House. Still, prospects for a summit remain distant.
“That’s going to be up to them,” Trump said. “It takes two to tango, I always say, and they should meet, I think, before I have a meeting and probably close the deal.”
The U.S. president pointed to personal animosity between Putin and Zelenskyy as a major obstacle. “They do not exactly get on well,” he said. “There’s tremendous dislike personally between the two men, and we’re going to have to straighten that out, but I would like to see them meet first.”
Trump added that both leaders “would like me to be there,” but said he preferred they attempt to resolve differences on their own.
Trump, who has praised Putin’s willingness to travel to Alaska as a “big statement” showing his desire for peace, said their conversations are often positive but undermined by continued Russian attacks. “Every conversation I have with him is a good conversation,” Trump said. “And then, unfortunately, a bomb is loaded up into Kyiv or some place, and then I get very angry about it.”
He acknowledged that resolving the conflict has been more difficult than he expected. “I thought this would be the easiest to settle, but strange things happen in war,” Trump said.
Following Zelenskyy’s Oval Office meeting with Trump last week, Putin said Moscow was prepared to raise bilateral negotiations to the foreign minister level. But Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told NBC on Friday there was still “no basis” for a direct Zelenskyy-Putin meeting given how far apart the sides remain.
In Kyiv, Zelenskyy was scheduled Monday to meet U.S. special envoy Keith Kellogg to prepare for a Ukrainian-U.S. negotiating group session later this week on possible talks with Russia.
Moscow and Kyiv resumed direct talks this year for the first time since 2022. Agreements reached so far have been limited to humanitarian issues such as prisoner exchanges, the return of bodies, and reuniting Ukrainian children with their families.
Sunday marked three and a half years since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine began.
