A top Kremlin aide says President Vladimir Putin and US President Donald Trump will meet in the "coming days" after the Russian leader had "useful and constructive" talks with a US special envoy in Moscow over bringing more than three years of war in Ukraine to an end.
Putin's foreign policy adviser Yury Ushakov said on August 7 that preparations for the meeting had begun and the two sides had already agreed on the venue "in principle."
"At the suggestion of the American side, an agreement has been reached in principle to hold a bilateral summit in the coming days," Ushakov was quoted as saying by Russian state news agencies.
If the two do meet, it will be the first summit of US and Russian presidents since Putin and Joe Biden met in Geneva in June 2021. Relations between Moscow and Washington ruptured less than a year later when Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
Ushakov's comments came after Trump said a day earlier the meeting between US special envoy Steve Witkoff and Putin "made a lot of progress" and added that he might meet with Putin soon.
"There's a good chance that there will be a meeting very soon," Trump said after his spokeswoman confirmed he was open to a meeting with Putin to discuss Moscow's invasion of Ukraine.
Asked if Putin had offered anything in return for the meeting, Trump offered no specifics, saying only that "we've had very productive talks today."
Trump spoke with reporters at the White House after his spokeswoman, Karoline Leavitt, said in a statement that the Russians "expressed their desire to meet with President Trump, and the president is open to meeting with both President Putin and [Ukrainian] President [Volodymyr] Zelenskyy."
A diplomatic source from EU ranks told RFE/RL that a "personal Trump-Putin meeting seems to be in the making."
Will Zelenskyy Join The Talks?
Trump plans to sit down with Putin as early as next week, and then wants a three-way meeting with Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, The New York Times and CNN reported, citing people familiar with the plan.
While there has been no information on where the meeting would be held, Putin is scheduled to meet later on August 7 with the president of the United Arab Emirates, which some media reports have quoted sources as suggesting could be a possible venue.
Trump said on August 7 that Putin does not have to agree to meet with Zelenskyy in order to have a meeting with him.
Lucian Kim, Ukraine analyst at the International Crisis Group, told RFE/RL that Putin has been reluctant to meet Zelenskyy but wouldn't want to forgo a chance to meet Trump.
"We should be aware that his idea of a solution to the conflict is very different from Trump's or Zelenskyy's," Kim said.
Putin has been seeking to balance an obvious desire to improve badly strained relations between Russia and the United States with his continuing effort to subjugate Ukraine, where he launched the biggest war in Europe since 1945 with the full-scale invasion in February 2022.
Ushakov called the roughly three-hour meeting between Witkoff and Putin at the Kremlin "quite useful and constructive."
"Our side gave certain signals about the Ukrainian issue, among other things," and "signals were received from President Trump," Ushakov, who was present at the meeting, said.
In addition to the war, he said, they discussed "the prospects for the possible development of strategic cooperation between the US and Russia."
John Hardie, deputy director of the Russia Program at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, was cautious about the prospect of a deal to end the war resulting from the Witkoff-Putin meeting.
"We've kind of seen this movie before where Trump will threaten economic punishment if a deal isn't made by a certain deadline, and then the Russians kind of offer some empty promise or meaningless talks, and the can gets kicked down the road," Hardie told RFE/RL. "I would hope that is not going to be the case here."
The potential summit was discussed in a call between Trump and Zelenskyy after Witkoff met Putin, according to media reports. NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte and the leaders of Britain, Germany, and Finland took part in the call, a source in Kyiv said, according to AFP.
Trump said he spoke by phone with Zelenskyy and "European allies," adding that "everyone agrees this war must come to a close, and we will work toward that in the days and weeks to come."
"Our common position with our partners is absolutely clear: The war must end. It must be an honest end," Zelenskyy wrote on X of the call.
What About Trump's August 8 Cease-Fire Deadline?
The Kremlin meeting took place ahead of Trump's August 8 deadline for Putin to agree to a cease-fire with Kyiv or face additional tariffs aimed at reducing Russian oil revenues used to fund the war.
The White House also threatened secondary measures against countries seen as helping fund Russia's war machine.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Trump will decide in the next 24 to 36 hours whether to impose the secondary sanctions.
Rubio said in an interview with Fox Business that it had been a "good day," but there were still "many impediments to overcome.”
“We have a better understanding of the conditions under which Russia would end the war,” Rubio said, adding that the key elements of ending the war will be territorial.
Trump Targets Russian Oil Imports
In a possible sign that the White House is still pushing its August 8 deadline, Trump signed an executive order imposing an additional 25 percent tariff on India. The new import tax, effective in 21 days, will raise duties on some Indian exports to as high as 50 percent -- among the highest levied on any US trading partner.
India’s External Affairs Ministry called the decision "extremely unfortunate," noting that many other countries are also importing Russian oil in their national economic interest.
"India will take all necessary steps to protect its national interests," it said, adding that purchases were driven by market factors and the energy needs of India's 1.4 billion people.
Trump said he would determine later whether there would be tariffs on Russia and said he might also announce tariffs on China.
Trump proposed a full, extendable 30-day cease-fire in April and Ukraine agreed, but Russia effectively rejected the idea, saying it wants peace but setting several conditions that Kyiv and many in the West say are unacceptable.
In addition to Ukrainian neutrality and strict limits on the size of its military, Putin has demanded that Ukraine hand Russia four regions it partially occupies and baselessly claims as its own: Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhya, and Kherson.
Many analysts say that with Russian forces making persistent gains on the front lines, albeit at a huge cost, Putin wants to seize those regions in their entirety before starting any substantive talks.
While few expect Russia to end or halt its war in the coming days, some analysts had predicted the Kremlin might use Witkoff's visit to try to stave off or soften the sanctions threat. Citing unnamed sources, Bloomberg News reported that Moscow was considering possible concessions that could include an offer of a pause on air strikes involving drones and missiles.
"For Russia, it is now important to find certain initiatives that can help postpone Trump's deadline. And accordingly, to apply a 'salami tactic' -- slicing everything into very thin pieces and feeding Trump small victories over time," Ukrainian political analyst Oleh Saakyan told Current Time on August 6 before the Putin-Witkoff meeting.
"The only question is whether Trump is ready to fall into this trap or not."
Three rounds of direct Russian-Ukraine talks in Istanbul since May produced agreements on prisoner exchanges but no apparent progress toward peace, and the sides' positions remain miles apart.
Trump announced on July 14 that Putin had 50 days to end the war or Russia would face severe tariffs targeting its oil and other exports, but he later moved the deadline up to August 8.
