Putin suggests meeting with Trump and Xi next month to put an end to the conflict in Ukraine: Report

Russian President Vladimir Putin has proposed a summit next month with US President Donald Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping to negotiate an end to the four-year-old Ukraine conflict that would favour Moscow, the Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday, citing people familiar with the discussions.

The proposed summit comes amid warming ties between Trump and Putin especially after the US President announced a deal to buy Russian diesel and signed an order on Friday waiving key sanctions on Moscow. 

Citing a former Russian intelligence officer briefed on the matter, the paper said that Putin’s suggestion came in an October 9 telephone call with Trump that also yielded the diesel deal between the two countries. 

A request for comment from Reuters was not immediately answered by the White House, and it was not possible to contact the Kremlin outside of usual business hours. Requests for response from the Chinese and Russian embassies in Washington were not immediately answered. According to the WSJ story, which cited people familiar with the talks, the Kremlin has proposed conducting the trilateral debate on the fringes of the next Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation conference. The summit is scheduled to happen in Shenzhen on November 18 and 19.

Dmitry Peskov, a spokesperson for the Kremlin, told the Journal that talks about a possible meeting were underway.  “There is no clear understanding yet regarding the meeting itself or its potential agenda, although all three parties acknowledge the hypothetical possibility of such a meeting taking place,” he told the Wall Street Journal. Trump has not agreed to such a summit, but he may be open to the idea, a senior US official told the Journal. Volodymyr Zelensky, the president of Ukraine, has criticized Trump’s diesel deal with Putin and the executive order lifting sanctions on Moscow, saying it would give Putin more confidence and prolong the conflict.