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Trump announces first meeting with Putin to take place in Saudi Arabia

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Trump announces first meeting with Putin to take place in Saudi Arabia
Donald Trump, then-Republican presidential nominee, arrives at a town hall campaign event at the Lancaster County Convention Center in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, U.S. on Oct. 20, 2024. (Win McNamee / Getty Images)

Editor's Note: This is a developing story and is being updated.

U.S. President Donald Trump said on Feb. 12 that his first meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin will take place in Saudi Arabia as part of efforts to negotiate an end to Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

"We'll meet in Saudi Arabia," Trump told reporters at the White House, according to AFP. His statement came just hours after he revealed that the two leaders had spoken by telephone and agreed to immediately begin peace talks regarding Ukraine.

Trump added that he did not believe Ukraine joining NATO was practical and doubted that the country would regain all of its territory. His remarks came as U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said on Feb. 12 that expecting Ukraine to restore its 2014 borders in any negotiations with Moscow was unrealistic.

The announcement marks a significant shift in diplomatic relations between Washington and Moscow. The decision to hold negotiations without Ukraine's direct involvement has raised concerns about Kyiv’s role in shaping its own future.

The extent of Ukrainian participation in the talks remains unclear.

Trump says peace talks to start ‘immediately.’ But what terms would be acceptable for Ukraine?
U.S. President Donald Trump on Feb. 12 held phone calls with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, saying that negotiations to end the war in Ukraine will start “immediately.” “I just spoke to President Volodymyr Zelensky. The conversation went very well. He,…
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Trump’s approach signals a renewed push to broker a resolution to the ongoing war; however, neither the Kremlin nor the White House has provided further details on the timing or agenda of the meeting.

In a post on Truth Social, Donald Trump said that both he and Vladimir Putin agreed that "we want to stop the millions of deaths taking place in the War with Russia/Ukraine."

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov confirmed that the two leaders spoke for 90 minutes, during which Putin extended an invitation for Trump to visit Moscow.

Trump also announced that he had instructed a team, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, CIA Director John Ratcliffe, and National Security Advisor Michael Waltz, to lead the negotiations.

According to Trump, U.S. Vice President JD Vance and Rubio will meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Feb. 14 to begin official peace negotiations.

"I just spoke to President Volodymyr Zelensky. The conversation went very well. He, like President Putin, wants to make peace. We discussed a variety of topics having to do with the war, but mostly, the meeting that is being set up on Friday in Munich, where Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio will lead the delegation," Trump wrote on Truth Social.

We asked young Ukrainians what would make them sign up for the armed forces
Ukraine faces a delicate balancing act — mobilizing enough people to fend off the immediate threat posed by Russia’s full-scale invasion, and preserving enough of the country’s youth to weather longer-term demographic concerns. On top of this, U.S. lawmakers and NATO allies are reportedly urging Uk…
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Olena Goncharova

Head of North America desk

Olena Goncharova is the Head of North America desk at The Kyiv Independent, where she has previously worked as a development manager and Canadian correspondent. She first joined the Kyiv Post, Ukraine's oldest English-language newspaper, as a staff writer in January 2012 and became the newspaper’s Canadian correspondent in June 2018. She is based in Edmonton, Alberta. Olena has a master’s degree in publishing and editing from the Institute of Journalism in Taras Shevchenko National University in Kyiv. Olena was a 2016 Alfred Friendly Press Partners fellow who worked for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette for six months. The program is administered by the University of Missouri School of Journalism in Columbia.

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U.S. President Donald Trump's remarks come after the Financial Times (FT) reported, citing undisclosed sources, that he asked President Volodymyr Zelensky whether Kyiv could strike Moscow or St. Petersburg if provided with long-range U.S. weapons.

"The stolen data includes confidential questionnaires of the company's employees, and most importantly, full technical documentation on the production of drones, which was handed over to the relevant specialists of the Ukrainian Defense Forces," a source in Ukraine's military intelligence told the Kyiv Independent.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban called upon the EU to take action against Ukraine's conscription practices in an interview with Origo published on July 15, amid an ongoing dispute with Kyiv over the death of a Ukrainian conscript of Hungarian ethnicity.

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