European Leader Threatens Russian Sanctions If He Doesn't Participate In Trilateral Meeting With Zelenskyy-Trump

US President Donald Trump's meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and European Leader/PHOTO via X @ZelenskyyUa

JAKARTA - European leaders are likely to return to sanctions if Russian President Vladimir Putin refuses to attend a trilateral meeting with US President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

"If Putin delays, evades, or refuses to speak, it will be an insistence on setting sanctions," said a senior government source familiar with the White House discussion quoted by the Telegraph daily as reported by ANTARA, Wednesday, August 20.

On Monday, Trump hosted Zelenskyy and a number of European leaders to the White House to discuss the Ukraine peace process, which Trump then delivered by telephone to Putin.

Trump and Putin agreed that negotiations between the Russian delegation and Ukraine be continued with the possibility of being represented by officials higher than the two countries, Russian presidential adviser Yuri Ushakov said.

Russia has repeatedly said that its country can survive despite the pressure of Western sanctions. Moscow says that the West does not have the courage to recognize the failure of the sanctions policy.

Putin previously said that Western policy was aimed at damaging and weakening Russia in the long term, but the sanctions actually caused severe damage to the global economy.