“Both leaders (Putin and Zelensky) have expressed a willingness to sit down together, and that is why our national security team will help both countries do so,” she commented.

Earlier, Leavitt stated that “the United States government and Trump administration are working with Russia and Ukraine to make this bilateral meeting happen.”

After the talks the day before with Zelensky and European leaders at the White House, Trump assured that he was organizing a meeting between his Ukrainian and Russian counterparts. He even discussed the plan with Putin in a phone call while the event was taking place at the Pennsylvania Avenue residence.

He also stated on social media that “at the conclusion of the meetings, I called President Putin and began preparations for a meeting, at a location yet to be determined, between President Putin and President Zelensky.” “After that meeting takes place,” it would be a trilateral meeting between the two of them and him (Trump), he emphasized on Truth Social.

According to Kremlin advisor Yuri Ushakov’s comments yesterday, Trump and Putin had a “frank and very constructive phone call” that lasted about 40 minutes, in which he “expressed his support for direct negotiations between the Russian and Ukrainian delegations.”

Last week, at the Alaska summit with Trump, President Putin was firm in his position that to end the war, “all the root causes of that conflict” must be eliminated before a peace agreement can be reached.

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