Trump vetoes Moscow as venue for Zelensky-Putin talks

U.S. President Donald Trump said he blocked Vladimir Putin’s proposal to hold a possible peace summit with Vladimir Zelensky in Moscow.

The exchange took place during a bilateral meeting on the sidelines of the NATO summit in Ankara, Turkey.

Trump told reporters that he had raised the question of a venue with Putin, who named Moscow as his preferred option.

“I said: you’re not going to meet in Moscow. No,” Trump recalled, according to UNITED24 Media, whose correspondent recorded the exchange.

Trump then turned directly to Zelensky and asked whether he would be willing to go to the Russian capital. “That’s difficult,” Zelensky replied. “There are a lot of Ukrainian drones there — it’s dangerous.” Zelensky had previously said that once “a thousand drones start reaching Moscow,” Putin would be forced to come to the negotiating table. In mid-June, the Moscow oil refinery, located approximately 15 kilometers from the Kremlin, was struck by drones.

Trump has positioned himself as a mediator but expressed frustration with the pace of negotiations, calling both leaders “tough people.”

“We’ve settled a lot of wars, and I thought this one would perhaps be the easiest. But Putin is not an easy man, and this guy is not easy either,” he said, gesturing toward Zelensky.

Nevertheless, Trump expressed confidence that a meeting would ultimately take place. “He will meet, and Zelensky will meet, and something positive will happen. I hope it happens soon,” he said. Trump also said he plans to speak with Putin again on Wednesday evening — a few days after their 90-minute phone call on Saturday, which the Kremlin described as “businesslike and highly constructive.”

The bilateral meeting in Ankara produced a concrete result: Trump granted Ukraine a license to manufacture Patriot missiles on its own territory. “It’s defensive weaponry, which I like better than offensive,” he said. Zelensky used his address at the NATO summit to call on allies to provide additional air defense systems. He said ballistic missiles remain “Russia’s last serious advantage” and also urged the alliance to admit Ukraine to its ranks.

A U.S. official told Reuters that Trump has “a real sense of urgency to bring this to an end,” noting that the front line has “clearly frozen over the past several months.”