White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt was forced Tuesday to walk back Donald Trump’s claim that he had gotten Russian President Vladimir Putin to agree to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy.
Delivering a readout at a White House press briefing, Leavitt claimed that Putin had “agreed to begin the next phase of the peace process, a meeting between President Putin and President Zelenskiy” during a phone call with Trump the day before. Trump had made similar claims himself on Monday.
But when one reporter pointed out that Moscow hadn’t voiced any such commitment, Leavitt was left to explain that the Trump administration was still working to secure the second summit.
“The Kremlin seemed to indicate that Putin did not firmly agree to a bilateral. Did he agree to have a sit-down with just Zelenskiy on the phone yesterday?” asked a reporter.
“I can assure you that the U.S. government and the Trump administration is working with both Russia and Ukraine to make that bilateral happen as we speak,” Leavitt replied, before quickly moving on.
The Kremlin was quick to dump cold water on Trump’s meager wins from his meeting with European leaders this week. Following Putin and Trump’s purportedly productive conversation, Moscow released a statement claiming that the leaders had merely discussed “the idea of raising the level of Russian and Ukrainian representation in the negotiations,” and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov also refused to commit to a meeting.
Trump said Monday that he “sort of” set up a meeting between the two leaders but added that ultimately, “they’re the ones that have to call the shots.” Still, the president hopes that a bilateral meeting between Putin and Zelenskiy would be followed by a trilateral meeting, this time including himself.
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