KEY POINTS
· Kremlin says Putin-Trump meeting needs to be organised “promptly”.
· Trump and Putin agree to “immediately” start negotiations on Ukraine war.
· Trump expects to meet Putin in Saudi Arabia soon.
· Russia wants European security and NATO expansion issues included in talks with the US.
· Both sides begin assembling teams for talks to end Ukraine war.
· Zelensky insists on Ukraine’s sovereignty in any deal.
· Kremlin says peace talks must address the “root causes” of the conflict.
MOSCOW: The Kremlin said Thursday that a face-to-face meeting between US President Donald Trump and Russian leader Vladimir Putin needed to be organised “promptly”, after the two presidents held a lengthy and productive phone call the day before.
Trump said the pair agreed to “immediately” start negotiations on the Ukraine conflict during the call, which marked the first direct presidential contact between Washington and Moscow in three years.
“There is definitely a need to organise such a meeting quite promptly, the heads of state have a lot to talk about,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.
Trump said Wednesday he expected to meet Putin in Saudi Arabia.
NATO expansion
Russia also wants to discuss European security in any negotiations with the US, Peskov said, in an apparent reference to Putin’s concerns about NATO expansion.
Before launching the Ukraine offensive in 2022, Moscow demanded that the military alliance roll back to its 1997 borders — which would exclude all of the Baltic states as well as Poland.
“Certainly, all issues related to security on the European continent, especially in those aspects that concern our country, the Russian Federation, should be discussed comprehensively, and we expect that to be the case,” Peskov said.
Peskov said that Russia has already begun forming a group for talks with the United States, including discussions on the situation in Ukraine.
“Undoubtedly, the work has begun. As soon as the president makes the relevant decisions, we will inform you,” he said when asked whether Russia had started assembling a negotiating team.
Peskov did not specify who might lead the group, stating that this would be announced following President Putin’s decisions.
Time to work together
Earlier, Trump said that he had asked Secretary of State Marco Rubio, CIA Director John Ratcliffe, National Security Advisor Michael Waltz, and Special Envoy Steve Whitkoff to lead the talks.
On Wednesday, Trump said he had held a “lengthy and highly productive” conversation with the Russian counterpart.
Trump, who has been pushing for a quick end to the nearly three-year war, denied that Ukraine was being excluded from the direct negotiations between the two nuclear-armed superpowers.
“We expect that he’ll come here, and I’ll go there, and we’re going to meet probably in Saudi Arabia the first time,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office about his plans to meet Putin.
Trump said he expected it to happen “in the not too distant future” and added that Saudi Crown Prince and Prime Minister Mohammed bin Salman, who played a key role in a Russia-US prisoner exchange this week, would also be involved.
The Kremlin said the call lasted nearly one-and-a-half hours. The two leaders had agreed that the “time has come to work together” and that Putin has invited Trump to Moscow, it said.
Earlier, Trump posted on his Truth Social platform that he and Putin had “both agreed, we want to stop the millions of deaths taking place in the War with Russia/Ukraine,” using an unconfirmed figure for the toll in the conflict.
Ukraine negotiations
The US president said they had agreed to “work together very closely, including visiting each other’s Nations” and to “have our respective teams start negotiations immediately” on Ukraine.
Trump later called Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky, who was not included in the call with Putin.
Zelensky said afterward that he had a “meaningful” call with Trump in which he had “shared details” of his talks with Putin.
Trump said after the conversation that Zelensky “like President Putin, wants to make PEACE.”
Andriy Yermak, head of Kyiv’s presidential office, said in televised comments that Zelensky and Trump had agreed to “immediately” start work on the high-level teams from each side who will try to hash out a deal.
Kyiv’s stance
Yermak, meanwhile, reiterated Kyiv’s stance that Ukraine’s “independence, territorial integrity and sovereignty” cannot be subject to compromise.
The Ukrainian leader is calling for tough security guarantees from Washington as part of any deal with Russia. Trump has meanwhile suggested a deal for Kyiv’s rare earth minerals in exchange for its continued military aid.
Zelensky is due to meet US Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Friday at the Munich Security Conference, after meeting US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent in Kyiv on Wednesday.
The Kremlin said Putin “agreed with Trump that a long-term settlement could be reached through peace negotiations” but said he wanted to “address the root causes of the conflict,” which Russia blames on Western influence on Kyiv.
