Vladimir Putin AGREES to Volodymyr Zelensky meeting, says Trump administration

The Trump administration has said Vladimir Putin has agreed to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky as part of peace talks to end the war in Ukraine.

The development was confirmed by Donald Trump's press secretary Karoline Leavitt, who said "encouraging conversations" between Trump and Putin had led to the maligned Russian leader agreeing to "the next phase of the peace process". Such a meeting could be followed by trilateral talks with Trump "if necessary".

But further details, such as where and when a meeting could take place, are not yet clear and Ukraine has not yet responded. Zelensky has previously said he is willing to meet with Putin, but it is likely any such summit would be at a neutral venue. A Ukrainian source told the BBC that Ukraine "immediately rejected" a suggestion from Putin that he and Zelensky could meet in Moscow.

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Leavitt said Trump hopes the pair can "engage in direct diplomacy". She did not comment on reports Putin has suggested the Russian capital as a place bilateral talks could be held.

Trump said earlier he had been working on arranging a meeting. "They haven’t been exactly best friends," he told Fox News. "It only matters if we get things done… I hope that President Zelensky will do what he has to do. He has to show some flexibility also."

A face-to-face meeting between the pair could be a remarkable development and step towards ending a war that has raged since Putin's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

In the time since, the UN's Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights estimates more than 13,800 civilians have been killed. Civilian deaths in Russian-occupied areas are hard to calculate.

According to the Ministry of Defence (MoD), more than one million Russian troops have been killed or injured since the full-scale invasion.

Yesterday, Sir Keir Starmer was one of several European leaders, including French President Emmanuel Macron and NATO secretary general Mark Rutte, who travelled to Washington on Monday as Zelensky held talks with Trump.

The PM hailed a “breakthrough” in efforts to end the war as Trump said he would broker a meeting between the Ukrainian and Russian presidents and that the US would back European security guarantees.

Today, Starmer held talks with members of the “coalition of the willing”, the nations prepared to contribute to guaranteeing Ukraine’s security if a deal to end the Russian invasion can be reached. The UK and France have already pledged to commit forces to Ukraine to deter another Putin invasion after a deal is struck.

The extent to which the US could back European-led security guarantees is also unclear. Leavitt only said the US would help with "coordination".

Trump has suggested American jets could help defend Ukraine, but said US troops would not be sent to defend it and that the latter's hopes of joining NATO and regaining the Crimean Peninsula from Russia are “impossible”.