Kremlin denies Putin agreed to trilateral meeting with Trump and Zelenskyy.
Moscow says preparations under way for possible meeting with Trump but dismisses US talk of three-way summit..
The Kremlin has said planning is under way for a possible meeting between Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump next week – but denied the Russian leader had agreed to a subsequent meeting with the US president and Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
On Wednesday Putin met Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff in the Kremlin, and reports from Washington suggested he had agreed to meet first with Trump and then in a trilateral format, as part of US efforts to bring about the end of the war in Ukraine.
On Thursday morning, however, the Putin aide Yuri Ushakov said the Russian president had not agreed to this. “We propose focusing on preparations for a bilateral meeting with Trump in the first place … As for a three-way meeting, which for some reason Washington was talking about yesterday, this was just something mentioned by the American side during the meeting in the Kremlin.
“But this was not discussed. The Russian side left this option completely without comment,” Ushakov told journalists in Moscow.
The prospect of Putin and Trump trying to come to an agreement on Ukraine with no one else in the room is likely to alarm Kyiv and European capitals.
Zelenskyy on Thursday was careful not to criticise Trump but said he would spend the day in consultation with European allies, including the German chancellor, Friedrich Merz. “The priorities are absolutely clear. The first is to stop the killings, and it is Russia that must agree to a ceasefire. The second is a format for leaders so that the meeting can work for a truly lasting peace,” Zelenskyy wrote in a Telegram post.....
