President Donald Trump is handing off responsibility for one of his signature campaign promises.
The U.S. president will leave Russian and Ukrainian officials to organize a meeting between Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelenskyy to discuss an end to hostilities without taking a direct role himself, reported The Guardian, citing officials familiar with the situation.
"Trump’s reluctance to push Putin and Zelenskyy to a meeting comes as he has acknowledged in recent days that ending the war in Ukraine has been more difficult than he had anticipated," the publication reported, "after saying on the campaign trail last year he could achieve it in 24 hours."
The president has reportedly told advisers in recent days that he plans to host a trilateral meeting involving the two leaders, but only after they've met first, but plans for that meeting are not set and Trump does not intend to get involved in planning those talks.
“I just want to see what happens at the meeting," Trump told talk radio host Mark Levin. "So they’re in the process of setting it up and we’re going to see what happens.”
The president has met separately with each leader in the past week after his deadline for Russia to end its invasion expired this month, and a senior administration official said he was taking a “wait-and-see approach” to a possible Putin-Zelenskyy meeting, although there haven't been any tangible signs of progress and the White House hasn't offered any suggestions for where those talks could take place.
“Trump and his national security team continue to engage with Russian and Ukranian officials towards a bilateral meeting to stop the killing and end the war," the White House said in a statement. "It is not in the national interest to further negotiate these issues publicly.”
Putin's foreign policy aide Yuri Ushakov said Trump and the Russian president agreed that senior negotiators would be selected for direct talks with Ukraine, which suggests direct talks are not imminent, and Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov complicated matters by suggesting that his country should help guarantee security for the country it has invaded.
“The Ukrainian side proposed, and our delegation at that time agreed, to work out security guarantees that would involve all permanent members of the UN security council – that is, Russia, the People’s Republic of China, the United States, France, and the United Kingdom,” Lavrov said.
