Following the March phone call between US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin, which lasted over two hours, the Kremlin has this weekend hinted strongly that the two leaders could soon meet in person.
Such an in-person meeting "will take place," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has confirmed, but then vaguely said it would be "at the appropriate time."
"The presidents expressed their political will that [the meeting] should take place, including publicly. But it will take place at the appropriate time, we need to prepare for it," he added.
The Sunday statement by Peskov also followed Friday’s meeting between Putin and Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff in St. Petersburg. While diplomatic normalization was the focus of the latest Istanbul talks, the Witkoff meeting covered "aspects of the settlement of the Ukraine conflict."
The White House called it "another step in the negotiating process". Earlier this month Russian presidential aide Kirill Dmitriev met with senior Trump officials in Washington.
Still, Moscow has repeatedly stressed the need to "eliminate the root causes of the crisis" and to uphold "Russia’s legitimate interests in the area of security" and "the complete cessation of foreign military aid and the provision of intelligence information to Kiev."
But President Trump has lately expressed frustration on the question of achieving peaceful settlement on Ukraine, and the clock is ticking as critics say the Kremlin is intentionally buying and wasting time, making slow but steady gains on the battlefield all along.
"Russia has to get moving. Too many people [are] DYING, thousands a week," Trump wrote days ago on Truth Social.
Trump further reiterated that the war would have never started in the first place if he were president. He called it "a war that never should have happened, and wouldn't have happened if I were president."
The Kremlin has made clear that it will never budge on certain conditions - especially Russian ownership of Crimea and the four eastern territories, and of course a commitment to Ukraine demilitarizing and no more NATO expansion.
