Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin are set to meet within days, the Kremlin has said – but it’s not yet clear whether Volodymyr Zelensky has been invited.

The US president yesterday revealed his plans to meet with his Russian and Ukrainian counterparts while speaking with European leaders from the UK, Germany and NATO on Wednesday.

He said there is a ‘very good chance’ that Putin and Mr Zelensky will talk ‘soon’ as the Russia-Ukraine peace talks rumble on.

Mr Zelensky was on the call and said afterwards he had a ‘conversation with President Trump’, adding that he and other European leaders believe the war must come to ‘an honest end’.

While Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov has now confirmed Trump and Putin will meet ‘in the coming days’, with a venue already agreed, it is not yet known if Mr Zelensky has been invited.

Ushakov said: ‘At the suggestion of the American side, an agreement was agreed in principle to hold a bilateral summit in the coming days, that is, a meeting between President Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump.’

Discussing the possibility of an invite for Mr Zelensky, Ushakov said: ‘This option was simply mentioned by the American representative during the meeting with the Kremlin. This option was not specifically discussed. The Russian side left this option completely without comment.’

If the meeting between Trump and Putin goes ahead, it would be the first since Trump returned to the White House for his second term.

Putin and Mr Zelensky have only met face-to-face once before, to discuss an end to fighting in Ukraine’s Donbas region in 2019.

Mr Zelensky said he planned calls with European leaders on Thursday to discuss the latest developments amid a flurry of diplomatic activity.

European countries must also be involved in finding a solution to the war on their own continent, he said on Telegram.

‘Ukraine is not afraid of meetings and expects the same bold approach from the Russian side. It is time to end the war,’ he added.

Trump earlier on Wednesday declared that Russia poses an ‘unusual and extraordinary threat’ to US national security.

He signed an executive order in response to the threat, that uses trade policy to try to pressure Russia into stopping its war with Ukraine.

‘I have received additional information from various senior officials on, among other things, the actions of the Government of the Russian Federation with respect to the situation in Ukraine,’ states the order announced on Wednesday.

‘After considering this additional information, among other things, I find that the national emergency described in Executive Order 14066 continues and that the actions and policies of the Government of the Russian Federation continue to pose an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States.’

In order ‘to deal with the national emergency’, Trump imposed a new tariff on imports from India, as a penalty for purchasing Russian Federation oil. An additional 25% tariff will take effect later in August, on top of a 25% tariff Trump announced last week that will start on Thursday. That doubles tariffs on India to 50%.

India’s foreign ministry responded to Trump’s announcement by stating it is ‘extremely unfortunate that the US should choose to impose additional tariffs on India for actions that several other countries are also taking in their own national interest’.

The order directs the Trump administration to identify any other countries that are importing oil from Russia and determine if they should also be slapped with similar tariffs.

It came as US Special Envoy Steve Witkoff met with Putin in Moscow. The two met for around three hours, according to Russian state media.

They discussed ‘the Ukrainian crisis’ and ‘the prospect of possible development of strategic cooperation between the United States and Russia’, said Putin’s top aide, Yuri Ushakov.

‘On our part, in particular on the Ukrainian issue, some signals were transmitted,’ stated Ushakov.

‘Now the situation is such that our president has complete information – that is, our signals, the signals from President Trump – and the results of these conversations have not yet been reported to Trump…

‘Let’s see when Witkoff will be able to report to Trump about the conversation that took place today.’

Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform that Witkoff ‘had a highly productive meeting’ with Putin.

‘Great progress was made! Afterwards, I updated some of our European Allies,’ he wrote.

‘Everyone agrees this War must come to a close, and we will work towards that in the days and weeks to come. Thank you for your attention to this matter!’

He did not bring up meetings with Putin and Zelensky in his social media post.

During a press conference later on Wednesday – with Apple’s chief executive Tim Cook announcing an additional $100billion investment in US production – Trump said Witkoff’s talk with Putin was not a ‘breakthrough’ because ‘we’ve been working on this a long time’.

‘The end of that road was long and continues to be long, but there’s a good chance that there will be a meeting very soon,’ Trump said of a potential summit with Putin.

Trump in early July, as talks around a ceasefire failed to progress, complained that ‘we get a lot of bulls*** thrown at us by Putin’. The US president has recently become more frustrated and impatient with Putin, and taken a more aggressive stance including ordering two nuclear submarines watching Russia to be repositioned.

Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk.

For more stories like this, check our news page.