U.S. President Donald Trump is scheduled to speak to his Russian counterpart for two hours on Tuesday as they seek an answer to a potential ceasefire in Ukraine.
President Trump is believed to be in conversation with Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin at time of press in a telephone call given two hours of their scheduled days. Per a Kremlin spokesman, the call was due to last from 1300 GMT (0900 U.S. Eastern) up to 1500 (1100).
UPDATE 1640 — The Trump-Putin Call has ended
The call between President Trump and President Putin has now finished and lasted over one and a half hours, broadcaster NBC News states. Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov at the Kremlin has said “the call is over”.
Now we wait on the post-call briefing.
UPDATE 1600 — Call Ongoing
We have some small updates on the progress of the Trump-Putin call today from White House deputy chief of staff Dan Scavino. Per his writing, the call started an hour behind the Russia-claimed schedule at 1400 GMT (1000 U.S. Eastern) and was “still in progress” as of 1530 GMT (1130 U.S. Eastern).
Scavino said “The call is going well”, although whether that means we get an agreement on a ceasefire today is anyone’s guess at this point.
The original story continues below
Dmitry Peskov, spokesman for President Putin, recalled in advance of today’s discussion that some discussions between the U.S. and Russia had already taken place, and consequently “there is a certain understanding”. Yet, he said, “there are many issues” left needing further talk, which he said included “bilateral relations and the Ukrainian settlement”.
In principle, all parties at the table in the Ukraine War ceasefire talks — Ukraine, its primary sponsor the U.S., and Russia — have previously stated they wish for peace, but generally with the caveat that it would have to be a peace on their own terms.
This position greatly slowed progress towards getting Ukraine to agree to take President Trump’s proposed path to peace last month and led, as President Volodymyr Zelensky attempted to extract last-minute concessions from America, to an Oval Office bust-up. Now Ukraine appears to have agreed to go along with Trump, but Russia remains in that essential position that peace is preferable but it has to be Moscow’s peace.
Indeed, in the run-up to today’s meeting President Putin expressed just this view, that he agrees with a ceasefire “in principle, but there are nuances”. Ahead of today’s talks, Moscow has briefed that it would see the United States recognising the Ukrainian region of Crimea as Russian territory as a “good faith measure”, something which Ukraine itself and its European allies would see as outrageous.
President Trump himself, who has expressed his determination to overcome these “nuances” to end the “killing field” of Ukraine confirmed a call would be taking place today over the weekend, when he said of the ongoing negotiations leading to this leader-to-leader talk “we’re doing pretty well I think with Russia”. Envoy Steve Witkoff said of the call: “The two presidents are going to have a really good and positive discussion this week.”
The President said part of the discussion would be about “dividing up certain assets”, with “a lot of it already discussed very much by both sides, Ukraine and Russia”. These assets included land and “power plants”, he said, presumably meaning Ukraine’s major fleet of nuclear reactors.
This story is developing, more follows.
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