US President Donald Trump said on Monday he is willing to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping in China next month, saying any such summit would focus on denuclearisation but could also touch on the war in Ukraine.
The three leaders could meet on the sidelines of a summit of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum, a grouping that includes China, Russia and the United States. It is due to take place in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen on 18-19 November. Asked whether he would join Putin and Xi to discuss Ukraine, Trump played that down as the main reason. "I would do it, not so much for Ukraine, because Russia, frankly, has been fine with Ukraine. They haven't been doing much," he said, adding that the meeting would be about nuclear weapons. Pressed on whether Ukraine would come up, he said he would do "whatever I can do to end the war".
According to the Wall Street Journal, Putin proposed a meeting with the two leaders to discuss ending the war. NBC, citing a US administration official, reported that Putin raised the idea of a joint meeting with Xi during a phone call with Trump this month, and that it concerned nuclear proliferation rather than Ukraine. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the topic of such a hypothetical meeting had "indeed been mentioned" given that all three leaders might attend, but stressed that no substantive proposals, agenda or details had been put forward. Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning said she had no information, and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, speaking in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, said he did not know whether it had been settled.
Kyiv reacted sharply. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andriy Sybiga said a trilateral meeting of Russia, China and the US would only "encourage Putin to continue this war", and called Putin "not a global leader" but "a war criminal". He backed instead a meeting of the Ukrainian, US and Russian presidents. Peskov, for his part, said a final settlement is impossible without a representative from Kyiv prepared to take responsibility. Putin has repeatedly ruled out meeting Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky before a final peace deal is ready, and has questioned Zelensky's authority to sign an agreement because his five-year term has expired under martial law.
Trump again criticised Zelensky, saying "Zelensky doesn't know what he's talking about" and that it was "time for somebody else to negotiate on behalf of Ukraine". He also defended a recent diesel deal with Putin and his decision not to impose new sanctions on Moscow, after an early-October phone call. That decision strained ties with Kyiv, and Zelensky warned Trump he was on the wrong side of history.
The prospect matters because it would bring together the leaders of the world's three largest nuclear powers while Ukraine's government fears being sidelined in talks about its own future.