The White House has said that the initiative to hold a meeting between the US President Donald Trump and Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin during Special Envoy Steve Witkoff’s visit to Moscow came from the Russian side.

Source: Ukrinform citing statement by White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt

Quote from Leavitt: "As President Trump said earlier today [on 6 August] on TRUTH Social, great progress was made during Special Envoy Witkoff’s meeting with President Putin. [N.B. Ukrainska Pravda does not recognise Putin as president – ed.]

The Russians expressed their desire to meet with President Trump, and the President is open to meeting with both President Putin and President Zelenskyy."

Details: Leavitt also stressed that Trump is committed to ending the war.

However, she did not clarify whose initiative it was to hold a joint meeting between Trump, Zelenskyy and Putin after a possible Trump-Putin meeting.

Background:

Trump intends to meet with Putin next week and then hold a trilateral meeting with Zelenskyy.On Wednesday 6 August, Witkoff held a meeting with Putin in the Kremlin, which lasted about three hours.Trump said that Witkoff’s meeting with Putin was “productive”.The Kremlin stated that during the meeting between Putin and Witkoff, there was an exchange of “certain signals” regarding the Russo-Ukrainian war.A White House official told CNN that arranging a meeting between Trump and Putin next week would be difficult.

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