Diplomatic road that paved way for planned Trump-Putin meeting
Washington: President Donald Trump is set to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin in latest bid by the White House to broker an end to the 3-year-old war in Ukraine.
A meeting between Putin and Trump would be the first US-Russia summit since former President Joe Biden met with the Kremlin leader in 2021. There’s no guarantee a Trump-Putin meeting would lead to the end of the fighting, since Moscow and Kyiv remain far apart on their conditions for peace.
Key events that shaped efforts to end the war since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022:
February 28, 2022: Ukrainian and Russian delegations meet in neighbouring Belarus for the first time since the invasion. Talks continue for the next two weeks, but no agreements emerge other than a decision to set up humanitarian corridors for civilians.
March 21, 2022: Zelenskyy calls for direct talks with Putin but is rebuffed by Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. A day later, Zelenskyy says he is prepared to discuss a commitment for Ukraine to not to seek NATO membership in exchange for a ceasefire, the withdrawal of Russian troops and a guarantee of Ukraine’s security.
March 29, 2022: Talks begin in Istanbul, with Moscow saying it’s willing to “fundamentally cut back” military activity near Kyiv and the northern city of Chernihiv. Kyiv said it was open to discussing neutral status for Ukraine if its security is backed by other nations.
April 7, 2022: Lavrov rejects a Ukrainian peace proposal as “unacceptable.” He says Kyiv has walked back on an agreement to exempt the Crimean Peninsula from wider Ukrainian security guarantees. Russia illegally annexed Crimea in 2014.
July 22, 2022: Russia and Ukraine, with mediation by Turkey and the UN, agree on a deal to unblock supplies of grain stuck in Ukraine’s Black Sea ports, ending a standoff that threatened global food security. The deal expires a year later.
September 30, 2022: Russia illegally annexes the Ukrainian regions of Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson, even though it doesn’t fully control any of them. Ukraine responds by applying to join NATO and by enacting a decree that declares negotiations with Putin “impossible.”
December 7, 2024: US President-elect Donald Trump meets Zelenskyy and other European leaders in Paris.
February 12, 2025: Trump and Putin agree to begin negotiations on ending the Ukraine war in a phone call that ends a three-year US-led effort to isolate Russia over Ukraine. February 18, 2025: Russian and US officials, including Lavrov and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, meet in Saudi Arabia and agree to work toward ending the war, as well as restoring bilateral ties. Ukrainian officials are not invited.
February 28, 2025: Zelenskyy meets with Trump, Rubio and Vice President JD Vance in a contentious session in the Oval Office. A proposed minerals deal between the countries is left unsigned.
March 11, 2025: US and Ukrainian officials meet in Saudi Arabia, with American officials putting forward a plan for a 30-day ceasefire. Kyiv agrees to the proposed truce.
March 13, 2025: Putin effectively rejects the ceasefire plan, stating certain issues must be resolved. He also meets with US special envoy Steve Witkoff in Moscow. Witkoff would travel to Russia twice more in April to meet Putin.
March 18, 2025: A proposal is put forward for a temporary halt on strikes on energy infrastructure. Both sides agree to the plan, but soon accuse each other of violations, and the measure later expires.
