Preparations for Putin-Trump Meeting Underway - President-Elect's National Security Advisor

Trump National Security Advisor pick Mike Waltz has confirmed that preparations for a meeting between Presidents Putin and Trump are underway.

"Well, the preparations are underway," Waltz said in an ABC News interview Sunday after being asked when the prospective meeting might occur.

At a press briefing earlier in the week, Trump said Putin "wants to meet" and that his transition team was in the process of "setting it up." The format of the meeting is "to be determined," Trump added.

"President Putin wants to meet. He's said that even publicly. And we have to get that war over with, that's a bloody mess," Trump said, referring to the ongoing NATO-Russia conflict in Ukraine using Kiev as a proxy.

Presidents Putin and Trump had a summit meeting in Helsinki in July 2018. They've met on at least four other occasions on the sidelines of international venues, and have spoken privately 16 times or more. The outgoing president, Joe Biden, held one meeting with Putin, in June 2021 in Geneva.

In a statement Sunday, the White House said Washington believes any agreement on Ukraine must provide "security guarantees" to prevent the conflict from reoccurring. Russian officials including President Putin and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov have themselves pointed to the need for iron-clad guarantees, but for Russia, given Kiev's tendency to renege on agreements, from the 2015 Minsk peace deal, to the 2022 draft agreement reached in Istanbul, but left unsigned thanks to interference by NATO.