President Donald Trump said late Sunday that he plans to speak to Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday and discuss ending the war in Ukraine.
Trump made the announcement while speaking to reporters on Air Force One during a late flight back to Washington.
“I think we have a lot of it already discussed by both sides — Ukraine and Russia,” Trump said. “We want to see if we can bring that war to an end. Maybe we can, maybe we can’t, but I think we have a very good chance.”
Trump will try to sway Putin to agree to a 30-day ceasefire proposal that Ukraine accepted last week but the Russian leader said needed to meet crucial demands made by the Kremlin.
When asked about ceasefire talks, Trump said: “We’ll be talking about land. We’ll be talking about power plants”.
Pressure has been building on Russia to cede to Trump’s demands after Ukraine accepted the ceasefire proposal last week. Russia’s deputy foreign minister Alexander Grushko said Moscow would oppose any troops in Ukraine as part of guarantees, including NATO troops.
“If [those soldiers] appear there, it means that they are deployed in the conflict zone with all the consequences for these contingents as parties to the conflict,” he said.
Over the weekend, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy accused Putin of prolonging the war.
“The buildup of Russian forces indicates that Moscow intends to keep ignoring diplomacy,” Zelenskyy said in a post on X on Saturday.
“We are ready to provide our partners with all the real information on the situation at the front, in the Kursk region and along our border,” he added.
Trump said work had been done on the issue over the weekend. Trump, who has been shifting closer to Moscow, described Ukraine as being more difficult to work with than Russia.
