Trump Plans to Meet With Putin to Talk About a Cease-Fire in Ukraine

President Trump said on Thursday that he planned to meet with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia in Budapest in the coming weeks to discuss ways to bring an end to Russia’s three-year invasion of Ukraine.

Mr. Trump made the announcement after a more than two-hour call with Mr. Putin that he characterized as “very productive.” Mr. Trump said the two agreed that their senior advisers, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, would meet next week at an unspecified location. The two presidents would then meet sometime after that “to see if we can bring this ‘inglorious’ War, between Russia and Ukraine, to an end.”

“I believe great progress was made with today’s telephone conversation,” Mr. Trump said in a Truth Social post.

Yuri Ushakov, an aide to Mr. Putin, told Russian news agencies that envoys from the two countries would meet “without delay” to lay the groundwork for the summit.

Mr. Trump’s talk with Mr. Putin came a day before he was scheduled to meet at the White House with President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, who is expected to make the case that the United States should give Ukraine additional weapons.

Emboldened after negotiating a cease-fire in the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, Mr. Trump seems to now be turning his focus back to Russia’s grinding war in Ukraine. In recent days, Mr. Trump has suggested that he may provide U.S.-made Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine, which would give Ukraine the ability to strike deep inside Russia.

“He would like to have Tomahawks,” Mr. Trump said of Mr. Zelensky on Tuesday. “We have a lot of Tomahawks.”

Before the call on Thursday, Mr. Trump had expressed increasing frustration with Mr. Putin. He came into office in January arguing that he could use his warm relationship with the Russian leader to bring a quick end to the war. In August, he hosted Mr. Putin at a meeting in Alaska but came away without an agreement on a plan to end the war.

More recently, Mr. Trump has found fault with Mr. Putin for the continuous attacks on Ukraine that have undercut his efforts to broker peace, and he has emphasized the difficulty to negotiate with the Russian leader, even suggesting that Mr. Putin had at times misled him and his senior aides.

“I’m very disappointed because Vladimir and I had a very good relationship, probably still do,” Mr. Trump said. “I don’t know why he continues with this war.”

Mr. Trump struck a much more cordial tone after his call with Mr. Putin on Thursday. He said the Russian leader had congratulated him on his diplomatic efforts in the Middle East.

He added that Mr. Putin had expressed gratitude for the work of Mr. Trump’s wife, Melania, who has held talks with Mr. Putin in an effort to secure the return of Ukrainian children separated from their families because of the war.

“He was very appreciative, and said that this will continue,” Mr. Trump said in the post. “We also spent a great deal of time talking about Trade between Russia and the United States when the War with Ukraine is over.”

Nataliya Vasilyeva and Tyler Pager contributed reporting.