President Trump, in an interview with the Daily Caller, a conservative U.S. news site, that was published Saturday, said he believed three-way talks involving Russian President Vladimir Putin, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and himself would still happen.
After his separate meetings with Putin and Zelenskyy this month, Mr. Trump said he was arranging face-to-face talks between the Russian and Ukrainian leaders and then he might meet with the two if necessary. But in the Daily Caller interview, Trump expressed less confidence he will be able to arrange those bilateral talks between Zelenskyy and Putin.
“We got along. You saw it, we’ve had a good relationship over the years, very good, actually,” Mr. Trump said of Putin. “That’s why I really thought we would have this done. I would have loved to have had it done.”
Mr. Trump added, “A tri would happen. A bi, I don’t know about, but a tri will happen.”
For his part, Zelenskyy on Friday expressed frustration with what he called Russia’s lack of constructive engagement. He accused Russia of dragging out negotiations, including by putting off a Russia-Ukraine summit with the argument that the groundwork for a possible peace settlement must be thrashed out first by lower officials before leaders meet.
That reasoning, Zelenskyy told reporters, is “artificial … because they want to show the United States that they are constructive, but they are not constructive.”
“In my opinion, leaders must urgently be involved to reach agreements,” Zelenskyy added.
Ukraine has accepted a U.S. proposal for a ceasefire and a meeting between Putin and Zelenskyy, but Moscow has raised objections. Mr. Trump said last week he would know within two weeks whether Russia was serious about entering negotiations.
Ukraine’s European allies have accused Putin of dragging his feet in peace efforts and avoiding serious negotiations while Russian troops move deeper into the country.
Moscow’s forces are waging a “nonstop” offensive along almost the whole 620-mile front line in Ukraine, and have the “strategic initiative,” the chief of Russia’s general staff said Saturday. Valery Gerasimov’s address to his deputies was published by Russia’s Defense Ministry.
Since March, Moscow has taken more than 1,351 square miles of Ukrainian territory, and captured 149 settlements, Gerasimov said. It was not immediately possible to verify the situation on the battlefield.
Russian forces this month broke into Ukraine’s southeastern Dnipropetrovsk region, a Ukrainian military official said Wednesday, pressing into an eighth Ukrainian province in a possible bid to strengthen the Kremlin’s negotiating hand. Gerasimov on Saturday said Moscow’s troops have so far taken seven settlements in Dnipropetrovsk.
Russia launched a large aerial attack on southern Ukraine, officials said Saturday, two days after a rare airstrike on central Kyiv killed 23 people and damaged European Union diplomatic offices.
Among other locations hit, the assault overnight into Saturday struck a five-story residential building, killing at least one civilian and wounding 28 people, including children, in the Zaporizhzhia region, Gov. Ivan Fedorov reported.
Russia launched 537 strike drones and decoys, as well as 45 missiles, according to Ukraine’s air force. Ukrainian forces shot down or neutralized 510 drones and decoys and 38 missiles, it said.
The Kremlin on Thursday said Russia remained interested in continuing peace talks, despite the air attack on Kyiv that was one of the largest and deadliest since Moscow’s full-scale invasion in 2022.
And following another overnight attack on Aug. 21 in which Russia targeted Ukraine with 574 drones and 40 missiles, Zelenskyy criticized Moscow for launching the strike “as if nothing had changed at all. As if there were no efforts by the world to stop this war.”
“So far, there has been no signal from Moscow that they are really going to engage in meaningful negotiations and end this war. Pressure is needed. Strong sanctions, strong tariffs,” Zelenskyy wrote on social media at the time.
