Putin lavishes praise on Trump and agrees to meeting after furious Zelensky accused the US President of making him ‘sell his country’ for $500bn mineral deal

Vladimir Putin has said he will meet Donald Trump and praised him for ‘changing his position’ when he ‘began to receive objective information’ – hours after Volodymyr Zelensky accused the US President of falling for Russian disinformation.

The Russian dictator welcomed Tuesday’s talks between Russian and American officials in Saudi Arabia, describing them as a ‘first step’ to restore relations with Washington.

‘I was briefed (on the talks). I rate them highly, there is a result,’ Putin said at a drone factory in Saint Petersburg, adding: ‘In my opinion, we made the first step to restore work in various areas of mutual interests’.

He said that securing a resolution to the conflict is a priority for Russia, but added that his country must build trust with the United States in order to achieve this.

‘It is impossible to solve many issues, including the Ukrainian crisis, without increasing the level of trust between Russia and the United States,’ Putin said in the televised meeting.

While Trump earlier suggested a face-to-face meeting between Putin and himself could be held before the end of the month, the Russian President said he was not ready to say when talks might take place.

Speaking to reporters in Kyiv earlier today, President Zelensky criticised Washington’s thawing of relations with Moscow and pushed back on a number of unfounded claims made by the US president at a press conference last night.

Zelensky said he ‘would like Trump’s team to be more truthful’ in response the US president’s striking claims – including the suggestion that Kyiv was to blame for the war, which enters its fourth year next week.

The Ukrainian President disputed Trump’s claims that the US has given Ukraine $500billion, calling the suggestion that Kyiv pay this back with a mineral exploration deal ‘not a serious conversation.’

‘Look, we all want a victory, and we want Trump to win, and we want Ukraine to win, all of us to succeed,’ he said. ‘But there is nothing clear here… I am protecting Ukraine. I can’t sell it away. I can’t sell our state.’

Referring to yesterday’s US-Russia talks in Riyadh, Zelensky added: ‘I believe that the United States helped Putin to break out of years of isolation… All of this has no positive impact on Ukraine.’ 

Putin said in his comments today that Trump had told him that Ukraine will take part in future talks, adding that there was no need for a ‘hysterical’ reaction to yesterday’s meeting.

‘We are not imposing anything on anyone. We are ready, I have already said this a hundred times – if they want, please, let these negotiations take place. And we will be ready to return to the table for negotiations,’ he said. ‘No one is excluding Ukraine.’ 

Moscow will have welcomed Trump’s questioning of Zelensky’s legitimacy at last night’s briefing in Mar-a-Lago, where he suggested it had been ‘too long’ since Ukraine had held elections for him to have a seat at the negotiating table.

He insisted this point was ‘not a demand from Russia’ – but the claim came straight out of Moscow’s playbook, and failed to mention that Russia’s recent election in 2024 was rigged, with Putin’s foes killed, jailed or exiled.

Trump went on to falsely claim that the Ukrainian President is only supported by four per cent of Ukrainians.

Responding to these claims, Zelensky said that the latest poll shows 58 per cent of Ukrainians trust him, adding that any attempt to replace him during the war would fail.

‘Unfortunately, President Trump – I have great respect for him as a leader of a nation that we have great respect for, the American people who always support us – unfortunately lives in this disinformation space,’ Zelensky said.

Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov earlier praised Trump for ‘publicly and loudly’ blaming the conflict on moves to admit Kyiv into the NATO military alliance, saying ‘he is the first… and only Western leader’ to do so.

Speaking to reporters last night, President Trump took aim at Zelensky for raising concerns that his country had not been at the table for talks between Washington and Moscow on Tuesday.

‘I think I have the power to end this war, and I think it’s going very well. But today, I heard, ‘Oh, well, we weren’t invited.’ Well, you’ve been there for three years,’ he said of Zelensky.

‘You should have ended it. You should have never started it. You could have made a deal. I could have made a deal for Ukraine.’

After the meeting between US and Russian officials in Riyadh, Trump said he was ‘much more confident’ that a peace deal could be struck.

‘They were very good,’ he said. ‘Russia wants to do something. They want to stop the savage barbarianism.’

The stunning claim came as Vladimir Putin’s forces launched a blistering aerial attack on the Ukrainian city of Odesa overnight, striking a children’s clinic and kindergarten and leaving much of the city without power.

Responding to Trump’s comments today, Germany has emphasised that it was Putin who launched the Ukraine war.

‘No one but Putin started or wanted this war in the heart of Europe,’ said Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock in a statement, adding that ‘we are working with all our strength to further strengthen Ukraine’.

When asked about Trump’s comments that Ukraine is responsible for the continuation of the war, a French government spokeswoman said that Paris did not understand the logic behind the US President’s remarks. 

Former UK defence secretary Ben Wallace said that the White House has been spouting ‘fake news’ on Ukraine, and slammed Trump’s suggestion that Kyiv is to blame for the war as being one of the Kremlin’s ‘talking points’.

Jack Lopresti, another ex-Tory MP, who has now joined the army in Ukraine, said the US had been ‘taken for fools’ by Putin.

‘I don’t think [Putin] has any interest in peace whatsoever, he’s still building up his military, he’s upscaled his defence manufacturing and he’s just sitting back letting this all unfold,’ he told Sky News.

He added that where US leadership lacks, the UK is working ‘to get Europe on board and get them to ramp up their defensive and offensive capability. 

‘We know what happens next, if Putin wins here he will not stop in Ukraine.’