President Donald Trump speaks during a meeting with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte as he arrives for a NATO summit in The Hague, Netherlands, on June 25, 2025. (Piroschka Van De Wouw, Pool Photo via AP)
In recent weeks, Trump has refused to mince words when asked about Putin. Trump said during a Cabinet meeting July 8 he was fed up with Putin and said he was eyeing potentially imposing new sanctions on Russia.
The NATO chief called the upcoming meeting "an important step" in the process of reaching full-scale peace negotiations between Russia and Ukraine.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy speaks with media during the European Council Meeting on December 19, 2024, in Brussels, Belgium. As of Sunday morning, Zelenskyy was not expected to be at the meeting in Alaska. (Pier Marco Tacca/Getty Images)
"If [Trump] thinks that that is the best scenario to invite Zelenskyy, then he'll do that," Whitaker said, adding that "there's time to make that decision."
When asked about whether Putin can be trusted, Whitaker said that in any situation of competing national interests it will be actions, not words, that decide whether peace is achieved and preserved.
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"Words are cheap, but in this case, whether it's the Russians or the Ukrainians, both sides are going to have to take the actions to have peace and to continue to honor that peace," he said.
Fox News Digital’s Diana Stancy contributed to this report.
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/nato-chief-says-upcoming-trump-putin-meeting-about-testing-russian-leader