US President Donald Trump said Thursday that a face-to-face meeting between President Volodymyr Zelensky and Russian President Vladimir Putin would be “great,” after the Ukrainian leader proposed direct talks with the Kremlin chief in a rare open letter. The comment came after Trump was asked whether Zelensky wanted to meet Putin directly to “hash out the end of the war in Ukraine” because he believed Trump was too busy with the war in Iran.JOIN US ON TELEGRAMFollow our coverage of the war on the @Kyivpost_official. “Well, I don’t know. I’m glad that they’re maybe talking about meeting. I think we had a lot to do with it,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office. “But I think it would be great if they met. They should – get it done,” he added. Zelensky’s appeal came shortly after Putin acknowledged that Russia needs to strengthen its air defense systems following a series of Ukrainian drone attacks deep inside Russian territory. US mediation losing momentum, analyst says The renewed push for direct Putin-Zelensky talks comes as Washington’s role in the negotiation process appears to have slowed. Paul Goble, a veteran American analyst, told Kyiv Post last week that the Trump administration has not shown a sustained long-term strategy for ending the war. “What I see from the outside is an American negotiating team that apparently appears in Moscow or talks to the Ukrainians, but I don’t see either of that a vision that they’re working step-by-step toward with an understanding that this is going to take a lot of time,” Goble said.