Trump announces that he will meet Putin in Saudi Arabia and agree to start talks immediately on the Ukraine war

US President Donald Trump announced that he will hold his first meeting with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in Saudi Arabia, as part of his efforts to put an end to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

“We’ll meet in Saudi Arabia,” Trump told reporters at the White House, hours after a phone call with Putin in which they agreed to launch peace negotiations over Ukraine.

He added that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman will also participate in the meeting with Putin.

The US president also predicted a ceasefire in Ukraine in the not-too-distant future, and said that the country, which is confronting a Russian invasion, will at some point need new elections.

US President Donald Trump and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin agreed on Wednesday to launch negotiations immediately to end the war in Ukraine, in a call that could reshuffle the cards after three years of war.

Trump said on his social media platform Truth Social that Russia and the United States will begin negotiations on Ukraine immediately, noting that he had a long and very productive call with his Russian counterpart.

“We agreed that we want to stop the millions of deaths in the Russia/Ukraine war,” he added, using an unconfirmed figure for the conflict’s death toll.

Trump also praised the Russian president in his post, saying Putin even used my very powerful campaign slogan, common sense”.

Regarding his first phone call with the Russian president since returning to power on January 20, Trump said, “We talked about the strengths of our two countries and the great benefits that will come one day from working together”.

For his part, the Russian president told his US counterpart that he wanted to find a long-term solution to the conflict in Ukraine through peace negotiations, according to what the Kremlin announced, noting that the phone call lasted an hour and a half.

“President Putin mentioned the need to address the deep roots of the conflict, and agreed with Trump that a long-term solution can be found through peace negotiations,” Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.

The two presidents also agreed to visit each other in their respective countries, according to Trump.

Immediately after the call, Trump called Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to inform him of the content of the call with Putin.

“I just spoke to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky… It was a very good talk… Like President Putin, he wants to make peace,” Trump said on his Truth Social platform.

He noted that Zelensky will meet with US Vice President J. D. Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio in Munich on Friday.

Zelensky, for his part, announced that he had discussed by phone with his US counterpart the chances of reaching peace in Ukraine.

“We talked at length about the chances of reaching peace,” Zelensky wrote on X, noting that President Trump shared the details of his conversation with Putin.

The US president, who hasn’t revealed his plan for Ukraine, has pledged to quickly end the carnage of the war, including putting pressure on Kiev, which received billions of dollars in military aid from Washington under his Democratic predecessor, Joe Biden.

The phone call between the two presidents comes a day after Russia released US Mark Fogel, who was sentenced to 14 years in prison on drug charges.

In return, Washington agreed to release Russian computer expert Alexander Vinnik, who is accused of multiple crimes related to a cryptocurrency exchange platform, a US official who preferred to remain anonymous said on Wednesday.

The White House said Tuesday it hoped the exchange would mark the beginning of a relationship with Russia to end the war in Ukraine.

Meanwhile, US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth in Brussels on Wednesday clearly outlined Trump’s outlines on NATO and Ukraine.

He considered that trying to restore Ukraine’s borders to what they were before 2014, including Crimea, is an unrealistic goal that would prolong the war.

He also considered granting Ukraine NATO membership to be unrealistic.

This comes as Europeans fear that Ukraine will be forced into a bad deal that will allow Russia to claim victory.

In this context, the foreign ministers of Spain, Germany and France stressed in Paris on Wednesday that any decision regarding Ukraine cannot be taken in isolation from Kiev and without the participation of the Europeans.

“There will be no just and sustainable peace in Ukraine without the participation of Europeans,” French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot said.

Likewise, his German counterpart Annalena Baerbock and his Spanish counterpart Jose Manuel Albares stressed that any decision on Ukraine cannot be taken without Ukraine.

The war in Ukraine, which began after the Russian attack in February 2022, has killed and injured hundreds of thousands.