FLASH
Shkruar nga Pamfleti
Now it remains to be seen whether he has the courage to go to the tripartite meeting. And the question that arises is: does he have the courage to do so, or is he playing with time again?
Vladimir Putin told Donald Trump on Monday evening that he would attend peace talks with Volodymyr Zelensky within two weeks, but without mentioning a specific date, fueling fears that he would back out of efforts to end the war at the last minute.
The Kremlin described the 40-minute phone call between Trump and Putin as 'candid' and 'quite constructive', moments after the US President said on social media that he and Putin discussed plans for a summit in the next two weeks between the leaders of Russia and Ukraine.
Volodymyr Zelensky has also said he is "ready" to sit down for face-to-face talks with Vladimir Putin to end the war in Ukraine.
This comes after the extraordinary meeting in the Oval Office with Donald Trump, where the two presidents exchanged praise and promises, a stark contrast to their explosive meeting in the same setting earlier this year.
The meeting was also attended by European leaders, including Keir Starmer, Italy's Giorgia Meloni and French President Emmanuel Macron.
But the tensions behind the scenes were apparently revealed when Trump appeared to assure French President Emmanuel Macron that Russian President Vladimir Putin was serious about making peace in Ukraine.
Macron appeared skeptical that Putin was serious about ending the more than three-year conflict that Russia had started. But he later suggested that Geneva could host a peace meeting between Putin and Zelensky.
Meanwhile, the Finnish prime minister also urged caution about the prospects for peace in Ukraine, after calling his Russian counterpart “untrustworthy.” Despite the meeting, Putin launched 270 drones and 10 missiles in an overnight strike.
Speaking after leaving Trump's historic White House talks with Zelensky and other European leaders, Alexander Stubb said that "Putin is rarely to be trusted."
Now it remains to be seen whether he has the courage to go to the tripartite meeting. And the question that arises is: does he have the courage to do so, or is he playing with time again?
Stubb's rhetoric was in stark contrast to that of President Trump, who hailed the success of Monday's talks at the White House.
William Browder, an expert on Russian foreign policy, warned that Putin's life depends on the continuation of the war in Ukraine.
Writing in the Daily Mail, he said: “For Vladimir Putin, a peace settlement means certain death by assassination, overthrow and execution, or in an international prison cell as a war criminal.”
The Russian president's only credible hope for survival in the gangster state he himself has created is to prolong the "special military operation" in Ukraine or to win on terms so successful that he can turn his attention to other former client states, other victims.
"Survival, after all, was Putin's objective when he launched the invasion in 2022," he writes.
The Kremlin has remained tight-lipped about any details, despite Vlad reportedly telling Trump he was interested in talks.
Moscow has remained publicly silent and no details have been released on when or where such a historic summit might take place.
There have been previous attempts to bring Zelensky and Putin together, with the Ukrainian leader even challenging Vlad to meet in Istanbul in May.
The silence from the Russian side raises fears that the tyrant may once again thwart any attempt at talks at the highest level.
Trump said that without trilateral talks between Ukraine, Russia and the US, the war could not end.
"The war will end. This gentleman wants it to end, Vladimir Putin wants it to end, I think the whole world is tired of it, and we will end it," Trump said. /Adapted from Pamphlet/
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