US President Donald Trump claimed that Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky were in the process of setting up a meeting.
“Putin is going to be good,” Trump told Fox and Friends. “I sort of set it up with Putin and Zelensky, and you know, they’re the ones that have to call the shots. We’re 7,000 miles away.”
However, the Kremlin took a more icy tone toward planning trilateral meetings.
"The president has reiterated this many times," Lavrov said on Russia’s channel 24. "The key point is that these formats are not pursued for the sake of media coverage or evening broadcasts."
He added: "Any contacts involving national leaders must be prepared with the utmost thoroughness."
He added that territorial changes are often an essential component of conflict resolution.
Trump says Putin, Zelensky should meet separately
Zelensky said that he was ready to meet with Putin after Sunday’s meeting with European leaders.
“(T)he question of territory is a question that we will leave between me and Putin. Security guarantees will probably be negotiated with our partners," Zelensky said
He later posted on X/Twitter that Ukraine would “do everything to make the path to peace a reality.”
CBS reported that Budapest and Switzerland are among the locations being considered for a trilateral meeting.
However, a Trump administration official later told CNN that a trilateral meeting could be put on the back burner after Trump announced that Zelensky and Putin would meet on their own.
“I had a very successful meeting with President Zelensky, and now I thought it would be better if they met without me, just to see – I want to see what goes on. You know, they had a hard relationship, very bad, very bad relationship,” Trump said on Fox News.
“And now we’ll see how they do. And if necessary – and it probably would be – but if necessary, I’ll go and I’ll probably be able to get it closed. I just want to see what happens at the meeting. So they’re in the process of setting it up, and we’re going to see what happens.”
Trump officially ruled out US military ground support for maintaining a potential peace deal between Russia and Ukraine in an interview on Fox on Tuesday. A White House official later told CNN that Trump was “emphatic” about not sending US military troops to Ukraine, but emphasized that the US would help with other aspects of security guarantees.