U.S. President Donald Trump will speak with the leaders of Russia and Ukraine by telephone on Monday, the Kremlin in Moscow having confirmed their conversation is fixed for 10AM Eastern.
Talks to stop the “bloodbath” of the Ukraine War will take place today between President Trump and President Vladimir Putin of Russia, and then between President Trump and President Volodymyr Zelensky afterwards. The telephone calls, which President Trump had earlier announced, are intended to cover “[stopping the bloodbath that is killing, on average, more than 5,000 Russian and Ukrainian soldiers a week]”, and trade.
President Trump said of his hopes that he wants a “[productive day]” leading to a ceasefire and the war then ending.
The first of the calls is to be the U.S.-Russia leaders’ discussion. On Monday morning the Kremlin announced, through Putin’s personal spokesman Dmitry Peskov that the call will take place at 1700 Moscow time (1000 EST, 1500 BST), and would relate to the in-person negotiations that took place last week between Ukraine and Russia. These were the first in-person talks between the countries in over three years, but despite high expectations broke without any major apparent progress besides an agreement for a prisoner exchange.
Peskov said on Monday, per Russian state media: “The conversation is important, taking into account the negotiations held in Istanbul… As for the talks, we [in the Kremlin] have already said everything we could, we underscored the basic points… We will now wait for it. We will give the maximum information possible based on the results of the conversation”.
The U.S. and Russia have already had some high-level contact to discuss the outcomes of Friday’s Russia-Ukraine talks, with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio having telephoned his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov on Saturday. Per a readout, the call was an exchange of opinions on the outcome of Friday’s talks.
The British government said in a statement on Monday morning that they had already spoken to President Trump about their views on the coming call with Putin in a call with Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, who told him the intention should be getting an “unconditional ceasefire and for President Putin to take peace talks seriously”, and additional sanctions if Russia didn’t get more serious about peace.
President Trump had alluded to the use of further sanctions himself on Friday. As reported, he noted hurting Russia’s oil economy would be “crushing” for the country “because they’re having a hard time” financially already. The President said: “I have a very good relationship with Putin, I think we will make a deal. We have to get together and I think we will probably schedule it because I’m tired of having other people go and meet.”
Ahead of the second Ukraine war call of Monday, the Ukrainian President’s Office stated that Zelensky had sent a letter to President Trump “with new proposals for cooperation in the defense-industrial and trade spheres”.
Last week, Ukraine and Russia met for the first face-to-face talks for three years. Both sides walked out claiming the other was making unreasonable demands, including a statement that Russia was insisting Ukraine surrender whole regions of the country annexed by Russia in return for peace.
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