Posted on 08/06/25
| News Source: WSJ
President Trump said there was a “good chance” he would meet soon with Russian President Vladimir Putin, after an offer Russia made Wednesday during a trip to Moscow by special envoy Steve Witkoff.
“There’s a good chance that there will be a meeting very soon,” Trump said at the White House. He said it wasn’t clear Putin was prepared to make peace: “I wouldn’t call it a breakthrough.”
Trump is also open to meeting together with Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, people familiar with the president’s plans said. It isn’t clear when and where the meetings would take place.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Putin had provided Witkoff “concrete examples” of conditions for Russia to agree to peace. “We got to bring the two sides close enough so that the ultimate closer, President Trump can get involved and make it happen,” Rubio said in an interview on Fox Business.
The meeting would be among the most dramatic moments yet of Trump’s second term. He plans to square off with Putin in a confrontation of serious consequence: ending Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Earlier Wednesday, Trump said on social media that Witkoff had made “great progress” in his meeting with Putin. But he added that there wouldn’t be a cease-fire by the Friday deadline he had set.
Trump will have an additional challenge. He will need to sidestep concerns that Putin would use the meeting to avoid the threat of sanctions on Russia’s energy customers and prolong peace negotiations so he can continue attacking Ukraine. Critics had long suggested Putin would dangle the prospect of a one-on-one meeting to extinguish Trump’s ire, which had grown after months of excuses for not signing a peace deal.
Trump has already offered his first salvo in the new pressure campaign against Russia. Earlier Wednesday, he said he would place another 25% tariff on India, a Russian energy customer, bringing its total tariff to 50%. Trump pledged to target countries that buy Russia’s oil if Putin didn’t agree to a deal, aiming to choke off resources for the Kremlin’s invasion.