WASHINGTON — The Kremlin confirmed on Saturday that President Donald Trump, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping will meet on Thursday in Shenzhen, the first time the leaders of the world’s three biggest nuclear powers have sat down together, according to The Associated Press.
The White House had confirmed the plan a day earlier. The talks will take place on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in the southern Chinese tech hub, a gathering that brings together 21 economies.
White House spokeswoman Olivia Wales told reporters Trump will discuss cutting nuclear weapons at the meeting. “He will discuss the reduction of nuclear weapons in the world, whose proliferation President Trump believes is very dangerous,” Wales said.
No one is promising a deal. A senior U.S. official described the session as the start of a conversation on nuclear disarmament that Washington hopes can turn productive, and said flatly, “We do not expect to get to any kind of agreement.”
Iran is on the agenda, Ukraine is not
Trump does plan to raise the U.S. war with Iran when he sits down with Xi and Putin, according to the senior official, who briefed reporters on condition of anonymity. He will steer away from Russia’s war in Ukraine.
That choice has already drawn a reaction in Kyiv. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has voiced concern that the meeting could become a place where a possible Ukraine deal gets discussed behind his country’s back.
The last nuclear arms pact between Washington and Moscow, New START, expired in February. Its lapse removed caps on the two largest arsenals for the first time in more than half a century, and Trump turned down a Russian call to extend the two-country deal for another year, saying he wanted a new agreement that brings in China.
The numbers explain Beijing’s reluctance. Pentagon estimates put China’s arsenal at more than 600 warheads, far below the more than 5,000 held by each of the United States and Russia, and China has shown little interest in negotiating a pact on those terms.
In Moscow, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov brushed aside comparisons with the 1945 Yalta Conference, saying any agreements reached in Shenzhen could not be imposed on other countries. “It’s clear that a meeting between the leaders of countries such as Russia, China and the United States is extremely significant,” Peskov said.
China, which is hosting the summit, has not publicly confirmed the three-way meeting. Trump and Putin have met face to face seven times, most recently in Alaska in August 2025, and Trump has held eight face-to-face talks with Xi.