White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt fielded questions about the likelihood of US President Donald Trump’s much-touted Zelensky-Putin talks taking place any time soon in a press briefing on Tuesday.
Asked “whose idea” it was to change the proposed next stage of the peace talks from a trilateral meeting between Trump, President Volodymyr Zelensky and Kremlin strongman Vladimir Putin to a bilateral meeting between Putin and Zelensky alone, Leavitt said that the idea “evolved in the course of the President’s conversations with both President Putin, President Zelensky, and the European leaders yesterday.”
Also on Tuesday, Politico reported the claims of an anonymous senior official in the Trump administration that Putin was responsible for the change in format. According to their source, Putin told Trump: “You don’t have to come. I want to see him one on one.”
Leavitt was also asked whether Trump can be certain that Putin is willing to speak to Zelensky at all, in light of reports that Putin proposed Moscow as the location of bilateral talks with Zelensky – a proposal that Zelensky would be certain to refuse.
Leavitt refused to confirm or deny the report.
Asked how long Trump is willing to “wait and operate in good faith” for the Kremlin to confirm that Putin will meet Zelensky, the White House Press Secretary said: “The President wants to move and he wants this war to end.”
Leavitt confirmed that US President Trump has “definitively” ruled out putting US boots on the ground in Ukraine, but added that the US President understands that security guarantees are “crucially important” to ensure a lasting peace.
Following multilateral talks between Trump, President Zelensky, and European leaders, the concrete details of a security accord are reportedly set to be worked out within the next ten days – though, in a seemingly contradictory statement, Trump said on Monday that the risk of future Russian aggression against Ukraine is “largely overrated.”