Russia and US agree for Trump-Putin meeting in coming days: Kremlin aide

Moscow: Russia and the United States have agreed for a meeting between US President Donald Trump and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in the coming days, Russian President’s aide Yuri Ushakov announced in Moscow on Thursday.

While speaking to reporters, Ushakov stated that Trump and Putin, at the suggestion of the US side, will hold a meeting in the coming days. He noted that the meeting between leaders of two nations is being worked out by officials of Russia and the US, Russia’s state-owned TASS news agency reported.

“At the suggestion of the American side, an agreement was agreed in principle to hold a bilateral meeting at the highest level in the coming days,” Ushakov said.

He stated that the following week was designated as a benchmark for the meeting between Putin and Trump. “But the parties are starting to directly prepare for this important meeting, and it is difficult to say how many days the preparation will take. But the option of holding the meeting during the next week was considered, and we are quite positive about this option,” he said.

Ushakov stated that the venue of the meeting between Trump and Putin has been agreed upon. However, the Kremlin will share the details regarding the location of the meeting “a little later”.

On Wednesday, Putin met US Special Envoy Steve Witkoff in Moscow. Trump said the meeting between Witkoff and Putin was “very productive, and great progress was made.”

In a post on his social media platform Truth Social, Trump stated, “My Special Envoy, Steve Witkoff, just had a highly productive meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Great progress was made! Afterwards, I updated some of our European Allies. Everyone agrees this War must come to a close, and we will work towards that in the days and weeks to come. Thank you for your attention to this matter!”

Earlier, Ushakov said that Putin received Witkoff in the morning and the two had a useful and constructive conversation. According to him, Russia has sent some signals on the Ukraine issue and received “signals” from Trump.

On July 14, Trump set a 50-day deadline, stressing that he would impose 100 per cent tariffs on Moscow and its trading partners if Russia did not make a peace deal with Ukraine. On July 29, US President announced he was reducing the deadline to 10 days. Recently, a senior US diplomat John Kelley told the United Nations Security Council that Trump had made it clear that he seeks a deal to end the war by August 8.

IANS