Russian President Vladimir Putin publicly confirmed for the first time on Thursday his planned meeting with US President Donald Trump and said the United Arab Emirates could be a suitable location for the summit.
Earlier, the Kremlin had confirmed the Trump-Putin summit, saying preparations were already under way, according to a voice message from Kremlin foreign policy adviser Yuri Ushakov that the Kremlin published.
Ushakov said the initiative for the US-Russia meeting came from Washington. He had said that there was an agreement on the location but that it would be announced later.
Trump plans to first meet Putin and then expand the talks into a trilateral meeting with Zelensky. However, the Kremlin has been reserved about a meeting between Putin and Zelensky.
On Thursday, Putin said he considers a meeting with Zelensky as possible, but the conditions for such negotiations must be right, and the prerequisites for this are still far from being met.
Putin made his comments at the Kremlin on the sidelines of a meeting with Emirati President Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan.
Putin did not list his conditions, but previously the Kremlin had insisted that Ukraine give up the territories Russia occupies, including Crimea which it illegally annexed in 2014, that western nations stop supplying Ukraine with weapons and that they exclude Ukraine from NATO membership.
Earlier in the day, Putin adviser Ushakov downplayed the potential for a meeting with Zelensky.
"As for the option of a trilateral meeting, which was mentioned yesterday [Wednesday] for some reason in Washington, this option was merely brought up by the American representative during the meeting at the Kremlin," he said, referring to US envoy Steve Witkoff's meeting with Putin. Nothing concrete was discussed on this matter, and Russia has not commented on it, he said.
"We propose focusing first on preparing the bilateral meeting with Trump and consider it important that this meeting is successful and fruitful," Ushakov emphasized
"Ukraine is not afraid of meetings and expects the same brave approach from the Russian side," he wrote. "It is time we ended the war."
Russia has been waging a destructive war of aggression against Ukraine for more than three years. US President Trump has repeatedly stated his intention to bring the war to a swift end.
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and Zelensky praised Trump's mediation efforts to end the war in Ukraine following the announcement of the Trump-Putin summit.
The view was shared by government spokesman Stefan Kornelius on Thursday following a phone call between Merz and Zelensky.
The Ukrainian leader, in a post on X, said and he and Merz agreed to speak again and security advisers will meet online "to align our joint views - Ukraine and the whole Europe, the United States."
Merz and Zelensky agreed that Russia must end its illegal war of aggression. Both leaders committed to maintaining close communication with European partners and the US.
"The parameters of ending this war will shape the security landscape of Europe for decades to come," Zelensky wrote on X.
"The war is happening in Europe, and Ukraine is an integral part of Europe – we are already in negotiations on EU accession. Therefore, Europe must be a participant in the relevant processes."
