United States President Donald Trump could meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin soon as the US continues preparations to impose secondary sanctions, including potentially on China, to pressure Russia to end the war in Ukraine.
Such a face-to-face meeting would be the first between a sitting US and Russian president since Joe Biden met Putin in Geneva in June 2021, some eight months before Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy have not met since December 2019.
The New York Times reported Trump told European leaders during a call on Thursday AEST he intended to meet with Putin and then follow up with a trilateral involving the Russian leader and Zelenskyy.
"There's a good chance that there will be a meeting very soon," Trump told reporters.
A White House official said Trump could meet with Putin as soon as next week.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said: "The Russians expressed their desire to meet with President Trump, and the president is open to meeting with both President Putin and President Zelenskyy."
US envoy Steve Witkoff meets with Putin
The details emerged following a meeting between Putin and US special envoy Steve Witkoff that Trump described as having achieved "great progress" in a Truth Social post. Although later he said he would not call it a breakthrough.
A Kremlin aide said the talks were "useful and constructive".
The diplomatic manoeuvres come two days before a deadline set by Trump for Russia to agree to peace in Ukraine or face new sanctions.
Trump has been increasingly frustrated with Putin over the lack of progress towards peace and has threatened to impose heavy tariffs on countries that buy Russian exports, including oil.
Russian President Vladimir Putin (left) spoke with US envoy Steve Witkoff during a meeting in Moscow for three hours on a last-minute mission to seek a breakthrough in the Russia-Ukraine war. Source: AAP / Gavril Grigorov
"We did it with India. We're doing it probably with a couple of others. One of them could be China," he said.
The White House official earlier said while the meeting between Witkoff and Putin had gone well and Russia was eager to continue engaging with the US, secondary sanctions that Trump had threatened against nations doing business with Russia were still expected to be implemented later this week.
Kremlin foreign policy aide Yuri Ushakov said the two sides had exchanged "signals" on the Ukraine issue and discussed the possibility of developing strategic co-operation between Russia and the US, but declined to give more details until Witkoff had reported back to Trump.
Zelenskyy said he believed pressure had worked and Russia was now more "inclined" to a ceasefire.
"The pressure on them works. But the main thing is that they do not deceive us in the details — neither us nor the US," Zelenskyy said in his nightly address.
Trump on Truth Social said he had updated some of the US's European allies following Witkoff's meeting.
Pressure on India
Trump took a key step toward punitive measures when he imposed an additional 25 per cent tariff on imports from India, citing India's continued imports of Russian oil.
The new measure raises tariffs on some Indian goods to as high as 50 per cent, among the steepest faced by any US trading partner. India's external affairs ministry called the decision "extremely unfortunate".
The Kremlin says threats to penalise countries that trade with Russia are illegal.
