US president Donald Trump and Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin have begun a highly anticipated call as the US administration looks to persuade the Russian leader to sign off on a 30-day ceasefire proposal as a possible pathway to end the war, the White House said.
Tuesday’s call comes after Ukrainian officials last week agreed to the American proposal during talks in Saudi Arabia led by US secretary of state Marco Rubio.
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy remains sceptical that Mr Putin is ready for peace as Russian forces continue to pound Ukraine.
Mr Trump, before the call, said he expected to discuss with Mr Putin land and power plants that have been seized during the three-year war.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said there was already a “certain understanding” between the two leaders, based on a phone call they held on February 12th and on subsequent high-level contacts between the two countries.
“But there are also a large number of questions regarding the further normalisation of our bilateral relations, and a settlement on Ukraine. All of this will have to be discussed by the two presidents,” Mr Peskov told reporters.
“The leaders will speak for as long as they deem necessary,” he said earlier.
In a social media post on Monday, Mr Trump said, “Many elements of a Final Agreement have been agreed to, but much remains.”
[ Trump to speak to Putin by phone as Ukraine peacekeeping plans progressOpens in new window ]
“Each week brings 2,500 soldier deaths, from both sides, and it must end NOW. I look very much forward to the call with President Putin.”
Ukraine, which Mr Trump has previously described as being harder to work with than Russia, has agreed to the US proposed 30-day truce. Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022.
“We got a good commitment from Ukraine last week,” US secretary of state Marco Rubio told “The Guy Benson Show” on Fox News radio on Monday.
“They agreed to stop shooting and freeze everything where it is, and we can get to talking about how to end this permanently. And now we got to get something like that from the Russians,” Mr Rubio said. “We’ll know more tomorrow after the president speaks to Putin. And hopefully we’ll be in a better place.”
Mr Trump has hinted at what aspects would make up a longer-term peace plan, including territorial concessions by Kyiv and control of a nuclear power plant likely to factor into negotiations.
[ EU foreign affairs chief questions Russia’s desire for peaceOpens in new window ]
Mr Zelenskiy has consistently said that the sovereignty of his country is not negotiable and that Russia must surrender the territory it has seized. Russia seized the Crimea peninsula in 2014 and now controls most of four eastern Ukrainian regions since it invaded the country in 2022.
Mr Putin has said his military incursion into Ukraine was because North Atlantic Treaty Organisation’s (Nato) creeping expansion threatened Russia’s security and has demanded Ukraine drop its Nato membership ambitions.
He has also said that Russia must keep control of Ukrainian territory it has seized, western sanctions should be eased and Kyiv must stage a presidential election. Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy, elected in 2019, currently rules under martial law he imposed due to the war.
Mr Trump, who promised as a presidential candidate to end the war in a swift 24 hours, faces a tough negotiator in Putin, who Zelenskiy has argued does not abide by agreements.
“There’s a danger that he will try to basically create more noise in this conversation with president Trump, pretending to agree on something while at the same time demanding more and more concessions on the Ukrainian side,” said Maria Snegovaya, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington-based policy research organisation.
“The worst case scenario is that Putin is successful selling some sort of promising lucrative future deal with Russia to Trump,” she said.
Mr Trump has moved the United States closer to Moscow since coming into office while alienating allies with tariffs and suggestions of annexing Canada and taking over Greenland.
He has expressed a kinship of sorts with Mr Putin, but his administration has shown recent signs of willingness to increase pressure on the Kremlin to stop the fighting.
Mr Trump held a contentious meeting Mr Zelenskiy at the White House last month that devolved in part because of Trump and vice-president JD Vance’s view that Mr Zelenskiy was insufficiently thankful for US support.
Mr Zelenskiy has accused Mr Putin of prolonging the war, saying that when the Russian leader speaks to Mr Trump on Tuesday, he will have been aware of the 30-day ceasefire proposal for a week.
Meanwhile, Russia sees big prospects to work with the United States, including in the space sector, and expects to hold talks with Elon Musk soon about flying to Mars, president Vladimir Putin’s international co-operation envoy said on Tuesday.
Kirill Dmitriev, was named by Mr Putin last month as his special envoy on international economic and investment co-operation
Mr Dmitriev said Russia wanted to work with SpaceX chief executive Musk as part of Moscow’s efforts to strengthen and develop Russia’s space agency Roscosmos and state nuclear corporation Rosatom.
“I think that there will undoubtedly be a discussion with Musk (about Mars flights) in the near future,” Mr Dmitriev said at a business forum in Moscow, going on to praise Musk’s efforts to push the boundaries of human achievement.
Mr Dmitriev said he was in touch with Roscosmos, Russian business and the American Chamber of Commerce in Russia.
Billionaire entrepreneur Musk was among Mr Trump’s biggest donors in the 2024 election and has become one of the president’s closest White House advisers.
– Reuters
