Trump says he can arrange a meeting with Putin "immediately," but he will do so only toward the end of the war in Ukraine

United States President Donald Trump said on Wednesday, September 2, at the White House that he could arrange “immediately” another meeting with Vladimir Putin, but only when the war in Ukraine is nearing its end and there is a concrete prospect of a peace agreement.

Trump said he no longer sees the point of a summit devoted to general negotiations. In the view of the US administration, diplomats and negotiators should first establish the main elements of an agreement, after which the leaders should meet to finalize it. Trump said Putin would agree to a meeting if he wanted one, but that the timing must be chosen carefully.

The statement came a few days after Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that a meeting between Putin, Trump and Volodymyr Zelenskyy would make sense only to approve agreements that had already been negotiated.

On August 25, CIA Director John Ratcliffe met in Moscow with the heads of Russia’s intelligence services and reportedly discussed, among other things, the possibility of a trilateral summit. The Kremlin did not, however, agree to the leaders starting negotiations from scratch.

The previous Trump-Putin summit, held in Alaska on August 15, 2025, did not end with a ceasefire agreement. Although diplomatic progress was reported and separate negotiations took place between Washington, Kyiv and Moscow, the war continues and no final agreement has been concluded.\n

This is a clean translation preserving the original facts and structure.