President Trump seeks to broker a meeting of the two leaders to end Europe’s most destructive war in generations.

The Kremlin has played down talk of an imminent summit between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky, as Donald Trump renewed his call for the two leaders to meet to discuss ending the war in Ukraine.

The conditions blunt the impact of two major wins Trump achieved in his back-to-back meetings with Putin in Alaska on Friday and with Zelensky and top European leaders at the White House on Monday.

Speculation is rising over a possible Zelensky–Putin showdown in Turkey, after reports that President Recep Tayyip Erdogan reached out directly to the Kremlin while appearing to sideline Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

The Kremlin hasn't ruled out summits but has said they could only meet in the very final stages of clinching a peace agreement.

A summit in Paris six years ago was the first and only time the two presidents ever met, flanked by French president Emmanuel Macron and Germany’s then-chancellor Angela Merkel. At the time, Putin and Zelensky were looking to hash out a ceasefire deal for war in Donbas in Ukraine’s east, where Russia-backed forces were fighting Ukrainian troops.

The Kremlin is keeping its options open, but analysts said the Russian leader would probably only meet with his Ukrainian counterpart to accept a capitulation.