Trump Says Ukraine, Russia to start truce talks immediately

The US President described “the tone and the spirit of the conversation” as “excellent. If it wasn’t, I would say so now, rather than later,” he added.
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KEVIN LAMARQUE

US President Donald Trump said that Moscow and Kyiv would begin talks “immediately” on ending the war in Ukraine after a phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday.

“Russia and Ukraine will immediately start negotiations toward a Ceasefire and, more importantly, an END to the War,” Trump said in a social-media post. “The conditions for that will be negotiated between the two parties, as it can only be, because they know details of a negotiation that nobody else would be aware of.”

The US president said he had also briefed European leaders on his two-hour call with Putin and that the Vatican had offered to host the negotiations. He described “the tone and the spirit of the conversation” as “excellent. If it wasn’t, I would say so now, rather than later,” Trump added.

At a subsequent bill signing in the Rose Garden, Trump said he believed “some progress has been made” toward ending the fighting.

“We’re trying to get that whole thing wrapped up, what a shame that it ever started in the first place,” he continued.

‘Frank, useful’ call: Putin

Putin earlier had earlier described the call with Trump as “frank” and “very useful,” and said the two agreed that Russia would work on a memorandum with Ukraine for a possible future peace treaty that included “the principles of a settlement, the timing of a possible peace agreement, and so on, including a possible ceasefire for a certain time if appropriate agreements are reached.”

Putin offered no details of the conditions that would need to be satisfied for a settlement or a timeline of any ceasefire with Ukraine in comments late Monday to reporters in the Russian resort city of Sochi where he took the call with Trump.

“The main thing for us is to eliminate the root causes of this crisis,” Putin said. The resumption of direct talks between Russia and Ukraine last week in Istanbul after a break of three years showed that the peace process was “on the right track,” he said.

This was the third publicly announced call between the two leaders since Trump returned to the White House in January. Trump also spoke by phone on Monday to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, who later confirmed to reporters that the US president sought direct talks between Ukraine and Russia.

A Russian memorandum that outlines its demands for a ceasefire will be shared with Ukraine ahead of a new round of talks that could happen at the Vatican, in Istanbul or Switzerland, Zelenskiy said. The next meeting may also include the US, the European Union and the UK, he added.

“In essence, he believes that the Russian side will give appropriate signals of how they think the ceasefire may materialize and the further steps,” Zelenskiy said.

Is the end near?

The US president is pushing for a deal to bring an end to Europe’s biggest conflict since World War II, after Russia rebuffed his efforts to achieve a ceasefire within his first 100 days in office. Putin is insisting on maximalist demands to halt the invasion he started in February 2022, even as his military has incurred massive casualties as Ukraine’s US and European allies have sent billions of dollars of weapons to help Kyiv defend itself.

Trump gave no indication of any immediate threat of sanctions on Russia. Ahead of the call, Ukraine and European leaders had urged Trump to impose new penalties on Russia if Putin rejected the demand for a full and unconditional ceasefire to allow for peace talks in the war that’s now in its fourth year. Zelenskiy, who met with US Vice President JD Vance in Rome on Sunday, said on Telegram that “pressure on Russia must continue until it is ready to stop the war.”

Trump briefed European leaders immediately after his call with Putin and discussed how a ceasefire and peace in Ukraine can be achieved, German government spokesman Stefan Kornelius said in an emailed statement late Monday. Zelenskiy participated in the call together with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, French President Emmanuel Macron, Finnish President Alexander Stubb, Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.

The US President and the European leaders agreed to closely coordinate the negotiations between Russia and Ukraine and to seek a further technical meeting, the spokesman for Merz said. The European participants in the call said they would increase pressure on the Russian side through sanctions, he added.

Russian forces continue to grind forward slowly on the battlefield. The Kremlin has repeatedly said Russia is unmoved by threats of further sanctions, and that they won’t persuade Putin to change his war aims. Russia’s economy has largely adjusted to years of sweeping restrictions from the US and its Group of Seven allies.

US officials had privately signaled to European counterparts that Trump was considering allowing a sanctions bill prepared by Republican Senator Lindsey Graham to progress if Russia didn’t budge, according to European officials familiar with the matter.

Trump has so far shown reluctance to take punitive measures against Putin for refusing a truce, even as Zelenskiy has said he’s willing to abide by one immediately.

On Friday, the US president told reporters that “nothing’s going to happen until Putin and I get together” to try to resolve the war. But there was on mention of a summit meeting by the two leaders following their call.

At the talks in Istanbul, the Russian negotiators reiterated Putin’s demands for Ukraine to surrender four regions of the country’s east and south that Moscow’s forces partly occupy but don’t fully control.

The Kremlin is also insisting on a legally enforceable guarantee that Ukraine won’t join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and that it will be a neutral state. Russia wants a ban on the presence of NATO forces in Ukraine and a halt to Western arms supplies to Kyiv, as well as limits on the size of the Ukrainian military.

Those demands are unacceptable to Kyiv.

The US has proposed freezing the conflict broadly along the current frontlines, giving Russia effective control of territory it occupies in eastern and southern Ukraine, and to accept Russian sovereignty over Crimea, the Black Sea Peninsula seized by Putin in 2014. It would also lift all sanctions on Russia.

The Trump administration has also pledged not to support NATO membership for Ukraine. Under a peace deal, Kyiv would receive strong security guarantees and a right to develop its own army, Bloomberg reported previously.

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