After Monday’s White House meetings between President Donald Trump, Volodymyr Zelenskyy and European leaders, the question remains: is Russian President Vladimir Putin prepared to sit down face-to-face with the Ukrainian leader — and on what terms?
Trump said he had personally called Putin to begin arranging a meeting. The Kremlin, by contrast, offered a more ambiguous response, acknowledging the idea had surfaced but refusing to confirm whether Moscow would accept.
For Putin, any such encounter would carry more weight as theater than diplomacy. ‘Putin would not like to meet Zelensky because he does not even recognize Ukrainian sovereignty,’ Ivana Stradner, Russia expert at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told Fox News Digital. ‘The only way that he can be in the room with Zelensky is if Trump facilitates, because Putin wants to show that Russia is equal to the United States… We are giving him that pleasure to feed his population about so-called Russian greatness.’
Ambassador Kurt Volker, who served as U.S. envoy to Ukraine in the first Trump administration, agreed that the Kremlin is unlikely to budge without concessions. ‘Putin is unlikely to accept such a meeting if his pre-conditions are not met,’ he said.
Those conditions are formidable. The Kremlin has already rejected NATO-style security guarantees for Ukraine, while Zelenskyy and European leaders have ruled out surrendering territory. Stradner warned that Putin’s strategy is to test the West’s resolve. ‘Eventually, Putin would challenge Western soldiers on the ground,’ Stradner said. ‘I doubt, as things are today, that any of the Western nations, except maybe the Baltic States or Poland, would be willing to send their kids to die for Ukraine. And Putin knows this.’
The Russian leader, she added, has been emboldened by weak Western responses in the past. She pointed to the 2023 clashes in Kosovo, when ethnic Serbians attacked NATO peacekeepers, injuring 90. ‘What did NATO do? Nothing,’ Stradner said. ‘That was round one. And round two is on the horizon.’
Volker, however, struck a more pragmatic tone. He noted that while Putin may posture at the negotiating table, Russia is grappling with battlefield supply line disruptions and a faltering economy. ‘The real issue will be what happens to Russian supply lines, increasingly targeted by Ukraine, and the Russian economy, which is faltering,’ Volker said. ‘I still expect Putin to go along with a ceasefire in place by the end of the year.’
The White House has tried to box Putin in, with press secretary Karoline Leavitt insisting Tuesday that ‘he has’ agreed to the meeting. ‘Both leaders have expressed a willingness to sit down with each other,’ she said. Still, analysts caution that Moscow’s word is far from binding.
Russia’s foreign minister signaled that a summit was not impossible, but hedged that ‘any contacts involving top officials should be prepared very carefully.’ He also reiterated longstanding Kremlin demands that Kyiv roll back laws Moscow claims limit the rights of Russian speakers.
Maria Snegovaya, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said a meeting would mark a shift but not a breakthrough. ‘So far there’s no clarity, at least in the public space, that the Kremlin is serious about meeting,’ she told Fox News Digital. ‘Even if it still would not necessarily get us closer to an actual agreement, it would signal some willingness toward not trying to avoid provoking or annoying President Trump.’
Snegovaya added that Putin’s calculus is rooted in caution. ‘For over 25 years of his rule, Putin generally avoids attacking a stronger side. He usually goes after the weaker party… Georgia, Syria, Chechnya. I think he would be cautious about going after the will of the European allies, especially if a strong retaliation is promised.’
Putin’s ‘fear’ of Trump may be the last lifeline to end the war, according to Stradner.
‘He does not trust Europe, he does not respect Europe. When it comes to the US, he despises the United States, but he fears Trump, because Trump is an unpredictable leader, and that’s that’s a nightmare for Putin.’