Trump to meet Putin soon, the Kremlin says as deadline looms

A meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President Donald Trump has been agreed, a Kremlin official said yesterday, the eve of a White House deadline for Moscow to show progress toward ending the 3-year-old war in Ukraine.

Putin’s foreign affairs adviser Yuri Ushakov said a summit could possibly take place next week at a venue that has been decided “in principle.”

He brushed aside the possibility of Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy joining the summit, something the White House had said Trump was ready to consider. Putin has spurned Zelenskyy’s previous offers of a meeting to clinch a breakthrough.

“We propose, first of all, to focus on preparing a bilateral meeting with Trump, and we consider it most important that this meeting be successful and productive,” Ushakov said, adding that U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff’s suggestion of a meeting including Ukraine’s leader “was not specifically discussed.”

It was not clear how the announcement of the meeting would affect Trump’s Friday deadline for Russia to stop the killing or face heavy economic sanctions.

The meeting would be the first U.S.-Russia summit since 2021, when former President Joe Biden met Putin in Geneva. It would be a significant milestone toward Trump’s effort to end the war, although there’s no guarantee it would stop the fighting since Moscow and Kyiv remain far apart on their conditions for peace.

Next week is the target date for a summit, Ushakov said, while noting that such events take time to organize and no date is confirmed. The possible venue will be announced “a little later,” he said.

Months of U.S.-led efforts have yielded no progress on stopping Russia’s invasion of its neighbor. The war has killed tens of thousands of troops on both sides as well as more than 12,000 Ukrainian civilians, according to the United Nations.

Western officials have repeatedly accused Putin of stalling for time in peace negotiations to allow Russian forces time to capture more Ukrainian land. Putin previously has offered no concessions and will only accept a settlement on his terms.

A meeting between Putin and Trump on the war would be a departure from the Biden administration’s policy of “nothing about Ukraine without Ukraine” — a key demand from Kyiv.

At the start of his second term, Trump was conciliatory toward Putin, for whom he has long shown admiration, and even echoed some of his talking points on the war. But he recently has expressed increasing exasperation with Putin, criticizing the Kremlin leader for his unyielding stance on U.S.-led peace efforts, and has threatened Moscow with new sanctions.

Zelenskyy seeks European involvement

Zelenskyy said he planned calls with European leaders yesterday to discuss the latest developments amid a flurry of diplomatic activity.

European countries must also be involved in finding a solution to the war on their own continent, he said on Telegram.

“Ukraine is not afraid of meetings and expects the same bold approach from the Russian side. It is time to end the war,” he added.

A ceasefire and long-term security guarantees are priorities in potential negotiation with Russia, he said on social media.

Securing a truce, deciding a format for a summit and providing assurances for Ukraine’s future protection from invasion — a consideration that must involve the U.S. and Europe — are crucial aspects to address, Zelenskyy said.

He noted that Russian strikes on civilians haven’t eased off despite Trump publicly urging Putin to relent.

A Russian attack Wednesday in the central Dnipro region killed four people and injured eight others, he said.

Poll shows support for fight waning in Ukraine

A new Gallup poll published yesterday found that Ukrainians are increasingly eager for a settlement that ends the fight against Russia’s invasion.

The enthusiasm for a negotiated deal is a sharp reversal from 2022 — the year the war began — when Gallup found that about three-quarters of Ukrainians wanted to keep fighting until victory. Now only about one-quarter hold that view, with support for continuing the war declining steadily across all regions and demographic groups.

The findings were based on samples of 1,000 or more respondents ages 15 and older living in Ukraine. Some territories under entrenched Russian control, representing about 10% of the population, were excluded from surveys conducted after 2022 due to lack of access.

Since the start of the full-scale war, Russia’s relentless pounding of urban areas behind the front line has killed more than 12,000 Ukrainian civilians, according to the United Nations. On the 1,000-kilometer front line snaking from northeast to southeast Ukraine, where tens of thousands of troops on both sides have died, Russia’s bigger army is slowly capturing more land.

In the new Gallup survey, conducted in early July, about seven in 10 Ukrainians say their country should seek to negotiate a settlement as soon as possible. Zelenskyy last month renewed his offer to meet with Putin, but his overture was rebuffed.

Most Ukrainians do not expect a lasting peace anytime soon, the poll found. Only about one-quarter say it’s “very” or “somewhat” likely that active fighting will end within the next 12 months, while about seven in 10 think it’s “somewhat” or “very” unlikely that active fighting will be over in the next year. MDT/AP