U.S. President Donald Trump called Vladimir Putin and urged the Russian leader to begin making plans for a summit with Volodymyr Zelenskyy, after meeting the Ukrainian president and European leaders at the White House on Monday.
The proposal — which Trump pitched as a one-on-one summit between Ukraine's and Russia’s leaders that would be followed by a trilateral gathering involving all three — represented the latest turn in the U.S. president’s push to broker an end to a conflict that has lasted over three years.
But first was the question of whether Putin would agree to direct talks. Russian presidential aide Yuri Ushakov said only that Trump and Putin had discussed the idea. That left uncertain if the rosy language emanating from Washington represented an actual breakthrough toward peace or simply a strategic reunification by Ukraine and its allies.
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