“As soon as we can set it up,” Trump told reporters on his Middle East trip, commenting on the timeline of his face-to-face meeting with Putin, without specifying a timeline.
Earlier, he reiterated that “nothing is gonna happen” on ending the Ukraine war until he meets Putin personally.
“Look, nothing is gonna happen until Putin and I get together,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One en route to the United Arab Emirates.
“And he wasn’t gonna go … He wasn’t going if I wasn’t there.”
On May 15, the Kremlin confirmed Putin would not attend the Istanbul talks, where Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy proposed a face-to-face meeting. Instead, Putin sent aide Vladimir Medinsky, Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Galuzin, Deputy Defense Minister Alexander Fomin, and General Staff intelligence (GRU) chief Igor Kostyukov.
The Ukraine-Russia talks are expected to begin around 12:30 p.m. on May 16 in Istanbul, led by Ukraine’s Defense Minister Rustem Umerov, with representatives from the Foreign Ministry, Presidential Office, SBU security Service, and General Staff.