Trump announces first meeting with Putin in Saudi Arabia

U.S. President Donald Trump said Wednesday he expects to see his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in Saudi Arabia for their first meeting since he took office in January, POLITICO reports. 

Trump made the remarks following an almost 90-minute phone conversation with Putin in which the two leaders discussed ending the Russia-Ukraine war. 

“We ultimately expect to meet. In fact, we expect that he'll come here, and I'll go there, and we're gonna meet also probably in Saudi Arabia the first time, we'll meet in Saudi Arabia, see if we can get something done,” POLITICO quoted Trump as saying at a press briefing in the Oval Office.

A date for the meeting “hasn't been set" but it will happen in the "not too distant future,” Trump added. He suggested the meeting would involve Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. "We know the crown prince, and I think it'd be a very good place to meet."

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov also said Wednesday that Putin had invited Trump and officials from his administration to visit Moscow to discuss Ukraine.

"The Russian president invited the U.S. president to visit Moscow and expressed his readiness to receive American officials in Russia in those areas of mutual interest, including, of course, the topic of the Ukrainian settlement," Peskov said.