Kremlin plays down Putin-Zelenskyy talks, Trump warns Russia may ‘not want to make a deal’

🇷🇺🇺🇸 Russian President Vladimir Putin and US President @realDonaldTrump following talks in #Anchorage, Alaska:

💬 President #Putin: Next time in Moscow
💬 @POTUS: I could see it possibly happening#RussiaUSA pic.twitter.com/wJQBarzhI3

— MFA Russia 🇷🇺 (@mfa_russia) August 16, 2025

Trump acknowledged the complexities in the conflict and said it was a “tough one” to resolve, while adding that it was possible the Russian president might not be interested in ending the hostilities.

“We’re going to find out about President Putin in the next couple of weeks. It’s possible that he doesn’t want to make a deal,” Trump said on Tuesday, reported BBC. Without providing any further detail, Trump added that Putin faced a “rough” situation if that were the case.

The Russian president, over a phone call which was dialed by Trump, reportedly said he was “open” to the idea of a bilateral meeting with Ukraine’s president, however, on Tuesday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov played down the vague commitment offered by the Kremlin chief.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, Finland’s President Alexander Stubb, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, President Donald Trump, France’s President Emmanuel Macron, Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, Germany’s Chancellor Friedrich Merz and NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte pose for a group photo in the Grand Foyer of the White House, in Washington. (AP)

“Any meeting would have to be prepared gradually…starting with the expert level and thereafter going through all the required steps,” Lavrov said on Tuesday.

However, Dmitry Polyanskiy, a Russian deputy representative to the UN, in a different tone told BBC that “nobody [had] rejected” the opportunity for direct talks, “but it shouldn’t be a meeting for the sake of a meeting”.

Few reports on Tuesday stated that Putin suggested to Trump that a meeting with Zelenskyy in Moscow was possible. It could have been the Kremlin’s way of putting a far fetched idea so that Kyiv doesn’t agree to a bilateral meeting with Putin.

(with inputs from BBC)