White House summit raises peace hopes but will Putin keep playing for time?

LONDON – US President Donald Trump claims he is organising an unprecedented trilateral meeting between himself, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky in his latest bid to stop Europe’s biggest and bloodiest confrontation since World War II.

After intensive talks in Washington with Mr Zelensky and six other heads of state and governments of key European nations, as well as the head of Nato, on Aug 18, Mr Trump took to social media to claim that he had spoken to Mr Putin, and

“began the arrangements” for the Russian-Ukrainian meeting

mediated by the US at “a location to be determined”.