President Trump spoke with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday and said that the call went well and that Russia and Ukraine would “immediately” begin negotiations on a ceasefire.
“Just completed my two hour call with President Vladimir Putin of Russia. I believe it went very well,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “Russia and Ukraine will immediately start negotiations toward a Ceasefire and, more importantly, an END to the War.”
Putin told reporters after the call that Moscow was ready to “work with the Ukrainian side on a memorandum on a potential future peace treaty.”
The Russian leader said the memorandum could outline “a number of positions, such as, for instance, settlement principles, the timeframe for signing a potential peace agreement, and so on, including a potential ceasefire for a certain period.”
Trump also said he spoke with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and informed several European leaders of the plans for Russia and Ukraine to begin ceasefire negotiations. He noted that Pope Leo XIV has offered the Vatican as a potential venue for the talks.
The Trump-Putin call came just a few days after Russian and Ukrainian officials held talks in Istanbul. During the talks, the two sides agreed to a prisoner swap, but it didn’t appear that any progress was made toward a ceasefire.
Russia and Ukraine remain very far apart on their conditions for ending the war. Putin wants Ukraine to recognize four Ukrainian oblasts that Moscow annexed in 2022 as part of Russia, which would require Ukrainian forces to withdraw from territory it holds in those regions, and Zelensky has repeatedly stated he will not cede territory.
The negotiations in Istanbul marked the first direct talks between Russia and Ukraine since March and April 2022. At that time, Russia’s main demand was Ukrainian neutrality. The Biden administration discouraged those negotiations, and later that year, Russia declared its annexation of the four Ukrainian oblasts and added the recognition of that territory as part of Russia to its demands to end the war.
