Kremlin confirms meeting of Putin, Trump and Xi on Thursday in China

O historic meeting between the Presidents of Russia, Vladimir Putin, of the United States, Donald Trump, and China, Xi Jinping, will take place on Thursday, at the margins of the summit of Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC), confirmed today the Kremlin.

“ An agreement was reached for a trilateral meeting between Presidents Putin, Xi and Trump, which will take place on the 19th. This meeting will take place in Shenzhen, outside the APEC summit.”The Russian Presidency spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, advanced to the Interfax news agency.

The Kremlin had already indicated this week that the parties were working on the meeting's agenda without revealing the date, but the White House confirmed that Donald Trump is meeting Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin on Thursday in the Chinese city of Shenzhen.

“The President made it clear that he would address, among other issues, the issue of reducing the number of nuclear weapons in the world. President Trump considers this proliferation very dangerous”, declared on Thursday to the press Olivia Wales, White House spokesman.

This is an unprecedented meeting between the heads of the world's largest nuclear powers.

The Ukrainian President, Volodymyr Zelensky, expressed the concern that the trilateral meeting could serve as a platform to discuss, in Kiev's absence, a possible agreement on the conflict initiated by the Russian invasion of his country in 2022.

The planning of the summit has drawn comparisons with the 1945 Yalta Conference, in which the leaders of the United States, the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union agreed to divide Germany and Berlin into four areas of military occupation and finalized the plans for the creation of the United Nations.

It is hoped that the trilateral meeting will serve as a starting point for the nuclear negotiations between the three leaders; there is no provision for the announcement of agreements, according to an American high-level authority that spoke to journalists under anonymity.

The last nuclear weapons pact between Russia and the United States expired in February, eliminating for the first time in more than half a century the limits imposed on the two largest atomic arsenals.