Read POLITICO’s live blog for all the news from Monday’s high-level White House meetings here.
Donald Trump will call Russia’s Vladimir Putin as soon as he has finished meetings with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and European leaders at the White House on Monday.
“I just spoke to President Putin indirectly, and we are going to have a phone call right after this meeting today,” the U.S. president told reporters during a joint press conference alongside Zelenskyy.
“He is expecting my call when we are finished with this meeting,” he added.
Trump also expressed hope that Monday’s summit could eventually lead to a trilateral meeting between Russia, Ukraine, and the U.S., adding that he believes Putin wants the war to end. “If we don’t have a trilateral, then the fighting continues,” he said.
Zelenskyy and a group of European leaders arrived in Washington on Monday to meet with Trump and seek a resolution to the war in Ukraine, three days after the Trump-Putin summit in Alaska.
