By Euronews | Created at 2025-03-17 08:26:36 | Updated at 2025-03-17 17:00:20
9 hours ago
Trump says that he would talk to Putin on Tuesday, after negotiators have pushed for Russia to back a US-Ukraine ceasefire proposal.
US President Donald Trump announced he would discuss ending the war in Ukraine with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday.
"A lot of work's been done over the weekend. We want to see if we can bring that war to an end,” Trump said late Sunday evening. "I think we have a good chance," he added.
Trump is trying to secure Russia's support for an interim 30-day ceasefire and halt in fighting, which Ukraine accepted last week.
“We will be talking about land. We will be talking about power plants,” Trump said, adding that negotiators had already discussed "dividing up certain assets."
His comments come as special envoy Steve Witkoff told CNN that Trump and Putin were expected to speak this week. Witkoff, who recently visited Moscow to move negotiations forward, said that discussions with Putin had been "positive" and "solutions-based."
He sidestepped questions on several more difficult aspects of the ceasefire proposal: such as whether Putin would demand the surrender of Ukrainian forces in Kursk, a halt to Ukraine's military aid, and the recognition of Ukrainian territory seized by Russia as Russian.
Putin last Thursday said he supported a truce but listed several questions he said still had to be discussed, including the status of Ukrainian troops in the western Russian region of Kursk.
Among other things, Moscow has said it would not accept the deployment of European peacekeeping forces in Ukraine — an idea proposed by France and the UK.
French President Emmanuel Macron on Saturday suggested in comments in several newspapers that Russia's acceptance of such troops — which he described as contingents of soldiers — was not needed as Ukraine was a sovereign state.
"If Ukraine requests allied forces to be on its territory, it is not up to Russia to accept or reject them," Macron is quoted as saying.
On Sunday, US Secretary of State Macro Rubio called his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, to discuss "next steps" following meetings in Saudi Arabia.
Both agreed to "working towards restoring communication between the United States and Russia," a handout from the US State Department read, without mentioning the ceasefire proposal.
For his part, Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has accused Putin of "deliberately" dragging out the ceasefire proposal to complicate the process and prolong the war.
UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer echoed Zelenskyy's criticism after hosting a virtual summit on Ukraine on Saturday, where he called Russia's response "not good enough."
The US-backed ceasefire proposal accepted by Ukraine following talks in Saudi Arabia called for a temporary halt in fighting, including in the Black Sea and across the frontline.
Diplomatic efforts to secure a ceasefire deal come as Russia and Ukraine traded drone fire over the weekend and into Monday morning, according to officials from both countries.
On Sunday, Ukraine's General Staff confirmed the withdrawal of Ukrainian troops from the logistics hub of Sudzha in the Kursk region, days after Moscow claimed it had captured the area where Ukraine launched a surprise incursion last year.
