A Trump-Putin meeting could happen as soon as next week, White House official says
A bilateral meeting between President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin could happen as soon as next week, a White House official said Wednesday.
But Trump himself was less definitive when asked by reporters at an Oval Office event later in the day about whether he would meet with Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
"Well, look, I don't want to say it's -- I've been disappointed before with this one," he answered.
At the same time, he said there's a "very good prospect" of a summit between Putin and Zelenskyy.
"Well, there's a – a very good prospect that they will," he said. "And we haven't determined where, but we had some very good talks with President Putin today. And, there's a very good chance that we could be ending the – ending the round -- ending the end of that road. That road was long and continues to be long. But, there's a good chance that they will be a meeting very soon."
When asked whether there was breakthrough in Wednesday's talks in Moscow between Putin and envoy Steve Witkoff and whether Putin made some kind of concession that he hasn't been willing to make before" Trump responded, "I don't call it a breakthrough. I mean, we've been working on this a long time."
Trump was asked whether his opinion that Putin was "tapping" him along had changed, but he said it was too soon to know.
"I can't answer the question yet. I'll tell you, in a matter of weeks, maybe less. But we've made a lot of progress," Trump said.
He would not weigh in on whether they are close to a deal as he has been "very disappointed" before.
When Witkoff returned from Moscow on Wednesday, he relayed to President Trump that Putin would like to meet with him, the White House official said.
In response, Trump indicated he is open to that if Putin also meets with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the official added.
During an interview with Fox Business Network's Larry Kudlow, Secretary of State Marco Rubio was measured about what had come out of the day's developments related to Russia and Ukraine, saying it could take time to bring the leaders of the countries together.
"I don't know if it'll be next week or not. It remains to be seen. I think it'll depend a lot on how much progress we can make," the secretary said when asked about Trump's plans for trilateral summit.
Rubio said that the administration would hold additional talks with European allies and the Ukrainians in the coming days aimed at bring all sides to the point where a face-to-face meeting with Putin and Zelenskyy "will be productive and worth doing."
"Hopefully, if things continue to progress, an opportunity will present itself very soon for the president to meet both with Vladimir Putin and with President Zelenskyy at some point here, hopefully in the near future – but obviously a lot has to happen before that can occur," he said, stressing there was "a lot of work ahead."
"There's still many impediments to overcome, and we hope to do that over the next few days and hours – weeks maybe," he said.
Witkoff met with Putin for several hours ahead of the Friday deadline imposed by Trump for Russia to agree to a ceasefire with Ukraine or face sanctions.
According to a senior administration official, the meeting "went well" but secondary sanctions are still expected to be deployed against Moscow this week.
Trump has expressed increasing frustration with Putin over the conflict, shortening the deadline for a ceasefire from 50 to 10 days as he said he was "disappointed" in the Russian leader.
Trump, in a social media post on Wednesday, called the meeting between Witkoff and Putin "highly productive."
"Great progress was made! Afterwards, I updated some of our European Allies. Everyone agrees this War must come to a close, and we will work towards that in the days and weeks to come," Trump wrote.
ABC News' Kelsey Walsh and Shannon Kingston contributed to this report.
