Trump wants to hold trilateral talks with Putin, Zelenskyy by August 22: Report

As more details about the meeting between US President Donald Trump and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin emerge, a report suggests that Trump said he wants to arrange a trilateral meeting with the Russian leader and the Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on August 22.

According to a report by Axios, Trump told Zelenskyy and European leaders in a phone call that he wants to hold the trilateral summit “fast” and as early as next Friday, August 22. While two sources close to the matter told Axios about Trump’s plan, it is unclear if Putin will join the meeting.

After the 3-hour discussion in Alaska, the Russian leader proposed to Trump that the next talks should be held in Moscow. A hesitant Trump admitted that he would receive flak for accepting such an invitation but noted that a meeting in Moscow is possible. However, if talks happen in the Russian capital, it would pose a major security threat to Zelenskyy, whose country has been locked in a war with Russia for the past three years.

Putin’s maximalist claims to Ukraine’s east

The sources told Axios that during the talks, Putin said that Ukraine would have to withdraw entirely from two of its eastern regions, which Russia claims as its own. The source noted that based on Putin’s approach in the Friday meeting, “a major breakthrough appears to be unlikely”.

The sources noted that Putin demanded that Ukraine cede two of the four regions to which Russia has laid claim (Donetsk and Luhansk), and freeze the front lines in the other two (Kherson and Zaporizhzhia). Russia controls nearly all of Luhansk, but only about three-quarters of Donetsk.

According to Axios, Putin expressed willingness to stop pushing forward in Kherson and Zaporizhzhia as a concession, and in exchange, Ukraine should completely withdraw from Donetsk. It is important to note that Russia has not made progress in any of those areas for some time.

Meanwhile, a Ukrainian source said that the US side had the impression Putin was willing to negotiate over the small slivers of the Sumy and Kharkiv regions under Russian control. But overall, Putin’s proposal reportedly calls for significantly more territory to shift from Ukrainian to Russian control than vice versa.