Trump proposes three-way summit with Putin and Zelenskyy

Shafaq News – Washington

On Friday, US President Donald Trump suggested holding a trilateral summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to end the war in Ukraine.

Speaking alongside Zelenskyy at the White House, Trump said he believes Putin “wants to end the war,” and pledged to address Ukrainian strikes inside Russia carried out with US-supplied missiles.

He also voiced reluctance to send Kyiv additional Tomahawk cruise missiles, citing “limited US stockpiles.”

The announcement follows Trump’s recent phone call with Putin and comes ahead of a planned US–Russia meeting in Budapest, expected within two weeks, according to the Kremlin.

If held, the summit would be the first direct meeting between the three leaders since the war began on February 24, 2022, which has killed or injured about 400,000 people in Ukraine, according to a January 2025 estimate by Zelenskyy.

Meanwhile, Independent outlets Meduza and Mediazona estimated in August that more than 219,000 Russian soldiers have been killed in the conflict.