Desk News || A meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky will take place within the next two weeks, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz has said.He even said that Putin had agreed to the meeting. This information was reported by Reuters in a report on Tuesday (August 19).Chancellor Merz said that US President Donald Trump played a key role in convincing Russian President Vladimir Putin to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.Merz said that Putin agreed to the meeting in a phone call with Trump. However, the location of the meeting has not yet been determined.“We do not know whether the Russian president will have the courage to participate in such a summit. So convincing and persuasion are needed,” he said. Merz himself traveled to Washington on Monday as part of a delegation of European leaders to express support for Zelensky.Merz told reporters that during a break in the meeting, “the US president spoke on the phone with the Russian president and it was decided that the presidents of the two countries will meet in the next two weeks.”He added that Trump had agreed to extend another invitation for a trilateral meeting later, so that the talks could actually begin.The German Chancellor said Trump was impressed to see European leaders present together and that they would now discuss the details of security guarantees for Ukraine.“To put it simply, the whole of Europe has to be involved,” Merz said.