JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:
President Trump says he'll likely meet soon with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to discuss ending the war in Ukraine.
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PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: That road was long and continues to be long, but there's a good chance that there will be a meeting very soon.
SUMMERS: Trump's relationship with Putin has run hot and cold recently. Trump now acknowledges Putin's words cannot necessarily be trusted. NPR White House correspondent Franco Ordoñez has more.
FRANCO ORDOÑEZ, BYLINE: President Trump came into office promising a quick end to the war in Ukraine. Time and again, he boasted his long ties with Vladimir Putin would help, as he did back in March.
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TRUMP: I've always had a good relationship with Putin, and, you know, he wants to end the war.
ORDOÑEZ: Trump says Putin is a strong and smart leader. For months, Trump resisted putting any pressure on Putin out of fear that it could complicate negotiations. Trump put more pressure on the Ukrainian president, questioning whether Volodymyr Zelenskyy was standing in the way of a peace deal and even downplaying Russia's responsibility for the war.
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TRUMP: I think we're doing very well with Russia. But right now, they're bombing the hell out of Ukraine. And Ukraine - I'm finding it more difficult, frankly, to deal with Ukraine. And they don't have the cards. They don't have the cards.
ORDOÑEZ: But as the war dragged on, Trump's feelings about Putin seemed to sour as Russia escalated its strikes. By May, Trump conceded in the Oval Office that maybe Putin was playing him.
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TRUMP: We're going to find out very soon. We're going find out whether or not he's tapping us along or not. And if he is, we'll respond a little bit differently.
ORDOÑEZ: Trump did respond differently. Last month, sitting beside the secretary general of NATO, Trump said he would send Patriot air defense missiles to Ukraine, and he lashed out at Putin.
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TRUMP: My conversations with him are always very pleasant. I say, isn't that a very lovely conversation? And then the missiles go off that night. I go home. I tell the first lady, you know, I spoke to Vladimir today. We had a wonderful conversation. She said, oh, really? Another city was just hit.
ORDOÑEZ: There are big questions about whether anything of substance can come out of this meeting.
ANDREA KENDALL-TAYLOR: I think it's too soon for Trump and Putin to meet.
ORDOÑEZ: Andrea Kendall-Taylor is a former senior intelligence officer focused on Russia. She says these types of summits generally come after a long and painstaking process by lower-level officials to hammer out a deal.
KENDALL-TAYLOR: And so the prospects of anything meaningful or lasting getting done at the summit, I think, is pretty low.
ORDOÑEZ: Taylor, who advised the Biden transition team on Russia policy, is now at the Center for New American Security. She worries Trump will largely give Putin what he wants.
KENDALL-TAYLOR: President Putin is either stringing Trump along and buying more time for himself as his forces are making more progress in Ukraine's east, or he's trying to enlist President Trump to sign on to his preferred plan for Ukraine in the hopes that he can get Trump to turn around and pressure Zelenskyy.
ORDOÑEZ: For his part, Zelenskyy says Russia now appears more inclined to agree to a ceasefire. But he emphasized caution.
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PRESIDENT VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY: (Non-English language spoken).
ORDOÑEZ: This time, Trump seems to be on the same page with Zelenskyy, being careful not to call this a breakthrough. The White House isn't saying when or where the summit will be, and Trump isn't making any kind of prediction on when a deal will be reached.
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TRUMP: I don't want to say. I've been disappointed before with this one.
ORDOÑEZ: It was a rare and candid reflection by the president on how difficult the last few months have been.
Franco Ordoñez, NPR News, the White House. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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