Establishing dialogue with Moscow

Efforts to Arrange Trump–Putin Meeting Underway

A meeting would mark the first time U.S. and Russian heads of state have sat down together since the start of the war in Ukraine in 2022.

Moscow is working to arrange a face-to-face meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President Donald Trump, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov announced on Feb. 22.

In remarks he shared with Russian state media, Ryabkov indicated that efforts to arrange the meeting have begun in earnest but will require “the most intensive preparatory work.”

The Russian official said U.S. and Russian envoys could meet “within the next two weeks” to lay the groundwork for the eventual talks between the two leaders.

If Washington and Moscow can arrange for the two leaders to meet, it will mark the first time that a U.S. president and a Russian president met directly since June 2021, when Putin met with then-U.S. President Joe Biden in Geneva, Switzerland.

Such a meeting would also mark the first in-person between the leaders of the United States and Russia since Moscow’s troops marched on Ukraine three years ago.

A meeting will take place whether and "until we can make any progress on ending the war in Ukraine, and if we can, and that meeting is what seals the deal," said Secretary of Stgate, Marco Rubio.

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