US President Donald Trump revealed Wednesday he expected to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin in Saudi Arabia for Ukraine peace talks, in an extraordinary thaw in relations after a surprise phone call between the two leaders.

In their first confirmed contact since Trump's return to the White House, the US president said he had held a "lengthy and highly productive" conversation with the Russian counterpart who ordered the bloody 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

Trump, who has been pushing for a quick end to the nearly three-year war, also denied that Ukraine was being left out in the cold by the direct negotiations between the two nuclear-armed superpowers.

"We expect that he'll come here, and I'll go there -- and we're going to meet probably in Saudi Arabia the first time," Trump told reporters in the Oval Office about his plans to meet Putin.

Trump said he expected it to happen "in the not too distant future" and added that Saudi Crown Prince Prince Mohammed bin Salman -- who played a key role in a Russia-US prisoner exchange this week --........

© International Business Times