Trump to Meet Putin in 'Coming Days,' Kremlin Says

A top Kremlin aide said that Donald Trump will meet Vladimir Putin as early as next week, in what would be the first in-person meeting between an American and Russian President in years. “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,” presidential aide Yuri Ushakov told Russian news agencies on Thursday. Trump had recently suggested that a meeting could happen soon. “We had some very good talks with President Putin today and there’s a very good chance that we could be ending the round—the end of that road,” he told reporters in the Oval Office on Wednesday evening. Ushakov said that a venue for the meeting has already been decided upon, with details to be announced later. He did not specify when this information would be released. But Ushakov also downplayed the prospect of a possible trilateral meeting that included Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, an idea floated by Trump’s Special Envoy Steve Witkoff, according to Russian state media. Witkoff met with Putin in Moscow on Wednesday in what Trump called a “highly productive meeting” on Truth Social. “We propose, first of all, to focus on preparing a bilateral meeting with Trump and we consider it most important that this meeting be successful and productive,” Ushakov said. The news comes a day before President Trump’s deadline for Russia to agree to a cease-fire deal with Ukraine or face punitive sanctions. It is unclear if Trump’s deadline for a cease-fire still stood. Trump was asked by TIME on July 14 how far he’d be willing to go to defend Ukraine if Putin escalated attacks despite his cease-fire deadline, which had originally been set for Sept. 2 before it was moved up to Friday. “I want to get the war settled … I have a problem, and [Vice President] J.D. [Vance] has a problem—they’re not Americans dying, but there are a lot of people dying and on something that should be settled,” he said. Trump has previously come under fire for his approach to Putin, who Western officials accuse of stalling for time in negotiations to allow Russian forces to capture more Ukrainian land. Putin has routinely given little indication he is willing to offer concessions. On Thursday, at least six people were killed and another 35 injured across Ukraine as Russia launched overnight attacks in the Zaporizhzhia and Donetsk regions. The attacks were part of 723 strikes across 12 settlements in Zaporizhzhia Oblast in the last 24 hours, according to regional governor Ivan Fedorov.