Trump to hold separate calls with Putin, Zelenskyy in bid to broker ceasefire
US President Donald Trump says he hopes Monday’s separate phone talks with Russian leader Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy will make progress toward a ceasefire in the war in Ukraine.
He is also expected to hold phone calls with NATO leaders.
According to the Associated Press, the Republican president is banking on the idea that his force of personality and personal history with Putin will be enough to break any impasse over a pause in the fighting.
“His sensibilities are that he’s got to get on the phone with President Putin, and that is going to clear up some of the logjam and get us to the place that we need to get to,” said Trump’s envoy, Steve Witkoff. “I think it’s going to be a very successful call.”
Trump said his discussion with Putin would focus on stopping the “bloodbath” of the war. It also will cover trade, a sign that Trump might be seeking to use financial incentives to broker some kind of agreement after severe sanctions were imposed on Russia by the United States and its allies that have steadily eroded Moscow’s ability to grow.
US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, said Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that Trump had made it clear that a failure by Putin to negotiate “in good faith” could lead to additional sanctions against Russia.
Bessent suggested the sanctions that began during the administration of Democratic President Joe Biden were inadequate because they did not stop Russia’s oil revenues, due to concerns that doing so would increase U.S. prices. The United States sought to cap Russia’s oil revenues while preserving the country’s petroleum exports to limit the damage from the inflation that the war produced.
Putin recently rejected an offer by Zelenskyy to meet in person in Turkey as an alternative to a 30-day ceasefire urged by Ukraine and its Western allies, including Washington.
Those talks ended on Friday after less than two hours, without reaching a breakthrough. Still, both countries committed to exchanging 1,000 prisoners of war each, with Ukraine’s intelligence chief, Kyrylo Budanov, saying on Ukrainian television Saturday that the exchanges could happen as early as this week.
Zelenskyy met with Trump’s vice president, JD Vance, and top diplomat, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, in Rome on Sunday, as well as European leaders, intensifying his efforts before the Monday calls.
The Ukrainian president said on the social media site X that during his talks with the American officials, they discussed the negotiations in Turkey and that “the Russians sent a low-level delegation of non-decision-makers.”
“We have also touched upon the need for sanctions against Russia, bilateral trade, defense cooperation, the battlefield situation, and the upcoming prisoners exchange,” Zelenskyy said. “Pressure is needed against Russia until they are eager to stop the war.”
The German government said Chancellor Friedrich Merz and French, British, and Italian leaders spoke with Trump late Sunday about the situation in Ukraine and his upcoming call with Putin. A brief statement gave no details of the conversation, but said the plan is for the exchange to be continued directly after the Trump-Putin call.
