'We would have it to talk about weapons and denuclearization': Trump opens door to unprecedented summit with Putin, Xi

President Donald Trump told reporters Monday in the South Lawn of the White House that he is willing to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping, even though there is not yet any official commitment to hold a summit with those leaders. The Republican president noted that the talks would not focus on the war in Ukraine, arguing that neither Moscow nor Beijing has played a particularly active role in the conflict recently. "Not so much on Ukraine because Russia, frankly, has been fine on Ukraine, they haven’t been doing much, and the same with China. We would have it to talk about weapons and denuclearization," he said.

In addition to these topics, Trump suggested that the leaders could address trade issues and other international matters, adding that China would likely host the potential summit. Far from going unnoticed, the truth is that these remarks drew strong criticism from the Ukrainian government, with Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha arguing that such a meeting would not help end the war his country is currently facing following Russia's invasion in 2022.

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Sybiha stated that a meeting between those three countries could accelerate efforts to end the conflict, but warned that a summit without the participation of the Ukrainian government could have the opposite effect. "A trilateral meeting between the leaders of Ukraine, the United States, and Russia could help end the war more quickly. A trilateral meeting between the leaders of Russia, China, and the United States would only achieve the opposite: it would encourage Putin to continue this war," he said.

Far from being an isolated opinion in Kiev, the truth is that the Ukrainian government has leveled strong criticism against the Republican administration, to the point that President Volodymyr Zelensky called Trump "weak" Trump for his agreement with Putin on diesel exports, as it eased several of the sanctions the White House had imposed on the Kremlin following the invasion. Zelensky questioned Trump's argument that easing restrictions on Russian diesel could help lower fuel prices in the United States and argued that the rise in costs is primarily linked to the U.S. war against Iran and the disruption of energy shipments through the Strait of Hormuz.