Trump wants to hold trilateral meeting with Putin, Zelensky on Aug 22: Report

U.S. President Donald Trump aims to hold a trilateral meeting with his Russian and Ukrainian counterparts as early as Aug. 22, the Axios news site reported Saturday.

Following his summit Friday with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska, Trump told European leaders during a phone call that he wants to arrange a meeting with Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

Trump is scheduled to meet with Zelensky at the White House on Monday and has invited European leaders to attend.

Putin has yet to publicly confirm his participation in the proposed summit.

Trump and Putin held a key summit in Anchorage, Alaska on Friday, marking the first face-to-face meeting between the two leaders since Russia's invasion of Ukraine began in February 2022. It was also Putin's first time on U.S. soil for talks with a U.S. president since 2007.

Putin said during a press conference following the summit that he and Trump had come to reach an "understanding."

Trump, for his part, said they made "some headway" but acknowledged they did not reach an agreement to end the ongoing conflict.

Meanwhile, Trump dropped his push for a ceasefire in Ukraine in favor of pursuing a full peace accord — a major shift announced hours after his summit with Putin.

Prior to the high-stakes meeting in Alaska, securing an immediate cessation of hostilities had been a core demand of Trump — who had threatened "severe consequences" on Russia — and European leaders, including Zelensky, who will now visit Washington on Monday.

The shift away from ceasefire would seem to favor Putin, who has long argued for negotiations on a final peace deal — a strategy that Ukraine and its European allies have criticized as a way to buy time and press Russia's battlefield advances.

Trump spoke with Zelensky and European leaders on his flight back to Washington, saying afterward that "it was determined by all that the best way to end the horrific war between Russia and Ukraine is to go directly to a peace agreement which would end the war."

Ceasefire agreements "often times do not hold up," Trump added on his Truth Social platform.

This new development "complicates the situation," Zelensky said Saturday.

If Moscow lacks "the will to carry out a simple order to stop the strikes, it may take a lot of effort to get Russia to have the will to implement far greater — — peaceful coexistence with its neighbors for decades," he said on social media.

European pressure

The leaders of France, Britain and Germany are due to host a video call Sunday for their so-called "coalition of the willing" to discuss the way forward.

In an earlier statement, they welcomed the plan for a Trump-Putin-Zelensky summit but added that they would maintain pressure on Russia in the absence of a ceasefire.

Meanwhile, the conflict in Ukraine raged on, with Kiev announcing Saturday that Russia had launched 85 attack drones and a ballistic missile during the night.

Back in Moscow, Putin said his summit talks with Trump had been "timely" and "very useful."

In his post-summit statement in Alaska, Putin had warned Ukraine and European countries not to engage in any "behind-the-scenes intrigues" that could disrupt what he called "this emerging progress."