Kremlin Confirms Putin-Trump Summit On The Way, As Zelensky Warns Against Cutting Ukrainians Out

The Kremlin side has confirmed that a Putin-Trump summit is on the way, following yesterday’s phone call, revealed to have been an hour-and-a-half in length. Crucially the two leaders agreed to begin negotiating an end to the war in Ukraine.

A Thursday report in Russia’s state RT strikes a glowing and enthusiastic tone: “It is hard to overestimate the significance of the recent phone call between Russian President Vladimir Putin and his US counterpart Donald Trump, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said.”

Peskov had further said following the “very important conversation” Wednesday that each side is now organizing the groundwork for a summit. It further involved the presidents extending invitations to visit each other’s countries.

“They will focus on a separate meeting; they also agreed that instructions would be immediately given to the relevant assistants so that they would begin the relevant work,” Peskov said.

A handful of mainstream media pundits online had a fit over imagining Putin arriving on US soil for an official state visit, given they see him as global enemy number one. This dramatic shift, or possibly bringing Putin in from the diplomatic cold, comes after three years of Moscow and Washington relations reaching a low-point in modern history. There have been no contacts at the highest levels since the Ukraine war began.

“We are much more impressed by the position of the current administration, and we are open to dialogue,” Peskov had emphasized. “There is political will… to conduct a dialogue to reach a settlement… We need to wait for… at least the first results of the joint work,” he also cautioned.

Interestingly Putin’s spokesman took a swipe at the prior US administration during the post-call presser:

Unlike the administration of ex-US President Joe Biden, which believed that “everything must be done to ensure that the war continues,” the Trump team apparently “holds the view that everything must be done to stop the war and for peace to prevail,” Peskov said.

President Trump had immediately after the 90-minute call written on Truth Social, “Millions of people have died in a War that would not have happened if I were President, but it did happen, so it must end. No more lives should be lost!”

As for his call with Ukraine’s Zelensky, which took place after Putin, Trump wrote: “The conversation went very well. He, like President Putin, wants to make PEACE.”

Zelensky in follow-up on Thursday articulated that he doesn’t think Trump calling Putin before him is a sign of US priorities, but admitted it is “unpleasant”. He also emphasized that European allies should be at any future negotiating table, and that Ukraine’s direct participation in talks concerning the country’s fate is paramount.

Unpleasant… not nice:

Zelensky:

The question of the elections is not at issue at the moment, it’s really not very nice that Trump called Putin first.

I did not discuss joining NATO with Trump, but I know that Washington does not want us to be a member of the alliance. pic.twitter.com/z2AkGQTCQR

— Clash Report (@clashreport) February 13, 2025

Negotiators “cannot accept any agreements without us,” Zelensky has said. The Germans and French have come out insistent on this as well. Zelensky laid out that Ukraine will not accept any agreements made between Russia and the US without his involvement.

Zelensky described that he did not discuss the question of future NATO membership with Trump, something which the White House has taken off the table as an option, but said he knows the Trump admin does not want Ukraine as a member. Further, Trump didn’t raise the question of Ukraine elections during the phone call, Zelensky said.

Yesterday in a Guardian interview, Zelensky set forth the following:

If Donald Trump withdraws US support for Ukraine, Europe alone will be unable to fill the gap, Volodymyr Zelenskyy has suggested. ‘There are voices which say that Europe could offer security guarantees without the Americans, and I always say no,’ said the Ukrainian president during an hour-long interview with the Guardian at the presidential administration in Kyiv. ‘Security guarantees without America are not real security guarantees,’ he added.

Trump has said he wants to end the war in Ukraine, but sceptics fear a US-brokered deal could involve forcing Ukraine to capitulate to Vladimir Putin’s maximalist demands. Zelenskyy said he was ready to negotiate but wanted Ukraine to do so from a ‘position of strength’, adding that he would offer US companies lucrative reconstruction contracts and investment concessions to try to get Trump onside.

Lavrov gloats…

Western leaders ‘in a stupor’ after Putin-Trump call, unaccustomed to a simple polite conversation – Lavrov

In the past four years threats and pejoratives became the language of Western diplomacy

Russian Foreign Minister hopes Trump reminds everyone how real diplomacy works pic.twitter.com/y9JuQhLePP

— RT (@RT_com) February 13, 2025

Zelensky is at least realistic on the above, particularly about ‘no real security guarantees without the Americans.’ As for getting Trump onboard with Kiev’s point of view in negotiations, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent met with Zelensky in Kiev on Wednesday, where they reportedly agreed to a draft proposal for granting US access to the country’s rare earth minerals.

“We had a productive, constructive conversation. For me, the issue of security guarantees for Ukraine is very important, and we talked about minerals in general,” Zelensky said of the meeting.