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.”
