The Kremlin plays Zelensky to speak while Trump warns that Putin may not want to “conclude an agreement”

The Kremlin played a speech on an imminent summit between Russian President Vladimir Putin and the Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, while Donald Trump renewed his call to the two leaders to discuss the end of the war in Ukraine.

Pressure for a bilateral meeting comes after the American president met Putin in Alaska last week, and welcomed seven European leaders and Zelensky at the White House on Monday.

Trump admitted that the conflict was “difficult” to resolve and conceded that it was possible that the Russian president was not interested in ending hostilities.

“We are going to discover President Putin in the next two weeks,” he said on Tuesday. “It is possible that he does not want to conclude an agreement.”

Putin faced a “difficult situation” if that were the case, added Trump, without offering details.

The Russian president told Trump on Monday that he was “open” that he was the idea of direct talks with Ukraine, but the next day, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Sergei Lavrov, watered up this already vague commitment.

Any meeting should be prepared “gradually … starting with the expert level and later passing all the required steps,” he said, repeating a frequent Kremlin line.

Dmitry Polyanskiy, a UN Russian deputy representative, told the BBC “no one (had) rejected” the opportunity for direct talks “, but it should not be a meeting for a meeting”.

On Tuesday, it was reported that Putin had suggested to Trump that Zelensky could go to Moscow for talks, which Ukraine has never been likely to accept.

The proposal may have been the way Russia highlighted an option if Farfelue kyiv could not have agreed.

Discussions in recent days seem to have given Trump a renewed understanding of the complexities of war and the Gulf between Moscow requests and kyiv’s position.

The very praised ceasefire he said that he could make Putin accepted that did not materialize – and now the American president said that Ukraine and Russia should go directly to a permanent peace agreement in place – but progress has been made in terms of security guarantees for Ukraine.

Zelensky and European leaders seem to have convinced Trump that such commitments would be essential to kyiv’s sovereignty in the event of a peace contract.

Trump said on Tuesday that the United States was ready to help Europeans “by air” if it provided boots on the ground in Ukraine in the event of a ceasefire or peace, although it has excluded the deployment of American troops.

The American president, however, has not come into details of the question of whether such aerial support can lead to information or the use of hunting jets and war plans.

While Trump’s commitments remain vague, France and the Coalition led by the United Kingdom said that it had worked to strengthen the plans for a comfort force that could be sent to Ukraine if hostilities ended.

After a virtual meeting of the group on Tuesday, a Downing Street spokesman said that the group would meet American counterparts in the coming days to “further strengthen plans to offer robust security guarantees”.

After his summit with Putin and the last discussions with Zelensky, Trump now seems to think that direct talks between Ukraine and Russia could bring a peace agreement closer – although he recognized that there had been “huge bad blood” between the two leaders.

The last time they met was in 2019. Since then, the Moscow War against kyiv led tens of thousands of victims as well as general destruction and current air attacks against civilian targets.

Putin considers illegitimate Zelensky and considers him as responsible for the growing proximity of Ukraine with the West. For years, he has made baseless complaints on the fact that kyiv was governed by a “neonazi regime” and said that any ceasefire with Ukraine was to have a change in the direction of kyiv.

Russia also has little interest in accepting talks while its troops have the upper hand over the front line.

However, European leaders and Zelensky spoke in favor of the idea of a bilateral meeting. The Ukrainian President said on Monday that it was open to “any format” to meet Putin, while Europeans had proposed ideas for potential summit locations.

By supporting direct talks with enthusiasm, they probably hope to convince Trump to return to a more difficult position against Moscow if Putin does not want to take action to put an end to war.

Meanwhile, Ukraine European partners seem much less optimistic than Trump than a conflict resolution could be at hand.

On Tuesday, French president Emmanuel Macron called Putin “a predator and an ogre at our door” and expressed “the greatest doubt” that the Russian president was ready to work towards peace.

Finnish president Alexander Stubb said Putin should “rarely trust”, adding that he was skeptical about a meeting with Zelensky to materialize.

More high -level discussions are scheduled for the coming days while questions about Trump’s level of support to Europe remain.

British military leader, Admiral Tony Radakin, goes to Washington for discussions on the deployment of comfort strength in Ukraine, while NATO military leaders should hold a virtual meeting on Wednesday.