WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin held a lengthy phone conversation on Tuesday as the White House pushes for Russia to sign off on its 30-day ceasefire proposal aimed at ending the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
The White House and Kremlin did not offer any immediate details about the substance of the conversation, but both confirmed that the call had ended.
Trump said before the call that he expected to discuss with Putin land and power plants that have been seized during the three-year war.
Ukrainian officials last week agreed to the American proposal during talks in Saudi Arabia led by Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, however, remains skeptical that Putin is ready for peace as Russian forces continue to pound Ukraine.
The engagement is just the latest turn in dramatically shifting U.S.-Russia relations as Trump made quickly ending the conflict a top priority — even at the expense of straining ties with longtime American allies who want Putin to pay a price for the invasion.
“It’s a bad situation in Russia, and it’s a bad situation in Ukraine,” Trump told reporters on Monday. “What’s happening in Ukraine is not good, but we’re going to see if we can work a peace agreement, a ceasefire and peace. And I think we’ll be able to do it.”
In preparation for the Trump-Putin call, White House special envoy Steve Witkoff met last week with Putin in Moscow to discuss the proposal. Secretary of State Marco Rubio had persuaded senior Ukrainian officials during talks in Saudi Arabia to agree to the ceasefire framework.
The U.S. president said Washington and Moscow have already begun discussing “dividing up certain assets” between Ukraine and Russia as part of a deal to end the conflict.
Trump, who during his campaign pledged to quickly end the war, has at moments boasted of his relationship with Putin and blamed Ukraine for Russia’s unprovoked invasion, all while accusing Zelensky of unnecessarily prolonging the biggest land war in Europe since World War II.
Putin’s spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Tuesday that Trump and Putin would discuss the war in Ukraine but added that there are also a “large number of questions” regarding normalizing U.S.-Russia relations.
