President Donald Trump could meet Vladimir Putin as soon as next week, a White House official said on Wednesday, as the U.S. continued preparations to impose secondary sanctions, including potentially on China, to pressure Moscow to end the war in Ukraine.
Such a face-to-face meeting would be the first between a sitting U.S. and Russian president since Joe Biden met Putin in Geneva in June 2021, some eight months before Russia launched the biggest attack on a European nation since World War Two.
Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy have not met since December 2019 and make no secret of their contempt for each other.
The New York Times reported that Trump told European leaders during a call on Wednesday that he intended to meet with Putin and then follow up with a trilateral involving the Russian leader and Zelenskiy.
“There’s a good chance that there will be a meeting very soon,” Trump told reporters.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said: “The Russians expressed their desire to meet with President Trump, and the president is open to meeting with both President Putin and President Zelenskiy.”
The details emerged following a meeting on Wednesday between Putin and U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff that Trump described as having achieved “great progress” in a Truth Social post, although later said he would not call it a breakthrough.
A Kremlin aide said the talks were “useful and constructive.”
The diplomatic manoeuvres come two days before a deadline set by Trump for Russia to agree to peace in Ukraine or face new sanctions.
Trump has been increasingly frustrated with Putin over the lack of progress towards peace and has threatened to impose heavy tariffs on countries that buy Russian exports, including oil.
Trump on Wednesday also said he could announce further tariffs on China similar to the 25% duties announced earlier on India over its purchases of Russian oil.
“We did it with India. We’re doing it probably with a couple of others. One of them could be China,” he said.
The White House official earlier said that while the meeting between Witkoff and Putin had gone well and Moscow was eager to continue engaging with the United States, secondary sanctions that Trump had threatened against countries doing business with Russia were still expected to be implemented on Friday.
Kremlin foreign policy aide Yuri Ushakov said the two sides had exchanged “signals” on the Ukraine issue and discussed the possibility of developing strategic cooperation between Moscow and Washington, but declined to give more details until Witkoff had reported back to Trump.
Zelenskiy said he believed pressure had worked on Russia and Moscow was now more “inclined” to a ceasefire.
“The pressure on them works. But the main thing is that they do not deceive us in the details – neither us nor the U.S.,” Zelenskiy said in his nightly address.
Trump on Truth Social said he had updated some of Washington’s European allies following Witkoff’s meeting.
A German government spokesperson said Trump provided information about the status of the talks with Russia during a call with the German chancellor and other European leaders.
PRESSURE ON INDIA – AND MAYBE CHINA?
Trump took a key step toward punitive measures on Wednesday when he imposed an additional 25% tariff on imports from India, citing New Delhi’s continued imports of Russian oil.
The new measure raises tariffs on some Indian goods to as high as 50% — among the steepest faced by any U.S. trading partner. India’s external affairs ministry called the decision “extremely unfortunate.”
The Kremlin says threats to penalise countries that trade with Russia are illegal.
Trump’s comment on Wednesday that he could impose more tariffs on China would be a further escalation between the world’s two biggest economies.
U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent last week warned Chinese officials that continued purchases of sanctioned Russian oil would lead to big tariffs due to legislation in Congress.
The U.S. and China have been engaged in discussions about trade and tariffs, with an eye to extending a 90-day tariff truce that is due to expire on August 12, when their bilateral tariffs shoot back up to triple-digit figures.
AIR STRIKES
Bloomberg and independent Russian news outlet The Bell reported that the Kremlin might propose a moratorium on airstrikes by Russia and Ukraine – an idea mentioned last week by Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko during a meeting with Putin.
Such a move, if agreed, would fall well short of the full and immediate ceasefire that Ukraine and the U.S. have been seeking for months. But it would offer some relief to both sides.
Since the two sides resumed direct peace talks in May, Russia has carried out its heaviest air attacks of the war, killing at least 72 people in the capital Kyiv alone. Trump last week called the Russian attacks “disgusting.”
Ukraine continues to strike Russian refineries and oil depots, which it has hit many times.
Putin is unlikely to bow to Trump’s sanctions ultimatum because he believes he is winning the war and his military goals take precedence over his desire to improve relations with the U.S., three sources close to the Kremlin have told Reuters.
The Russian sources told Reuters that Putin was sceptical that yet more U.S. sanctions would have much of an impact after successive waves of economic penalties during the war.
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