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Trump to hold phone call with Putin today to push for ceasefire in Ukraine
2025-05-19 09:08:51 / BOTA
US President Donald Trump will hold a phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin today as part of his long-running efforts to end the war in Ukraine launched by Moscow in 2022.
Trump had pledged during the US election campaign to end the conflict within a day of taking office, but his diplomatic efforts have so far yielded little progress.
Delegations from Russia and Ukraine held direct negotiations in Istanbul last week for the first time in almost three years, but the talks ended without a commitment to a ceasefire.
Both sides traded insults, with Ukraine accusing Moscow of sending a "fake" delegation of low-ranking officials.
After the negotiations, Trump announced that he would speak by phone with the Russian president in an effort to end the "bloodshed" in Ukraine, which has devastated large parts of the country and displaced millions of people.
Trump also said he would speak with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and NATO officials, expressing hope that a "ceasefire will happen and this very violent war... will end."
Since taking office in January, Trump has repeatedly stressed that he wants to see an end to the conflict and recently supported calls for a 30-day unconditional ceasefire.
So far, he has focused mainly on increasing pressure on Ukraine and refrained from criticizing Putin.
Both Moscow and Washington have previously stressed the need for a meeting on the conflict between Putin and Trump.
The US president has also argued that "nothing will happen" in the conflict until he meets face-to-face with Putin.
In talks in Istanbul, also attended by US officials, Russia and Ukraine agreed to exchange 1,000 prisoners each and exchange ideas on a possible ceasefire, but without any concrete commitments.
Ukraine's chief negotiator, Defense Minister Rustem Umerov, said the "next step" would be a meeting between Putin and Zelensky.
Russia said it had considered the request.
"We consider it possible, but only as a result of work and after achieving certain results in the form of an agreement between the two sides," the Kremlin spokesman said.
Ukraine's Western allies have since accused Putin of deliberately ignoring calls for a ceasefire and have pushed for new sanctions against Russia.
The leaders of Britain, France, Germany and Italy held a phone call with Trump on Sunday.
"Ahead of President Trump's call with President Putin tomorrow, the leaders discussed the need for an unconditional ceasefire and for President Putin to take peace talks seriously," a spokesman for British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said.
"They also discussed the use of sanctions if Russia did not seriously engage in a ceasefire and peace talks," the spokesman said.
Zelensky also discussed potential sanctions with US Vice President JD Vance when they met after Pope Leo's inaugural mass at the Vatican on Sunday.
"We discussed the talks in Istanbul, where the Russians sent a low-level delegation without decision-making powers," Zelensky wrote on Telegram after the meeting.
"We also touched on the need for sanctions against Russia, bilateral trade, defense cooperation, the situation on the battlefield, and the upcoming prisoner exchange."
A senior Ukrainian official from the president's office, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told AFP that they had also discussed preparations for Monday's phone call between Trump and Putin.
It was the first meeting between Zelensky and Vance since their heated exchange at the White House in February.
In the Oval Office, Vance publicly accused Zelensky of being "disrespectful" to Trump, who told the Ukrainian leader he should be more grateful and that he had no "cards" to play in negotiations with Russia.
Ukraine said on Sunday that Russia had launched a record number of drones into the country overnight, targeting various regions, including the capital Kiev, where a woman was killed.
Another man was killed in the southeastern Kherson region, where a railway station and private homes and cars were hit.
In an interview with Russian state television broadcast on Sunday, Putin said Moscow's goal was to "eliminate the causes that caused this crisis, create the conditions for a lasting peace and guarantee Russia's security," without giving further details.
Russia's references to the "root causes" of the conflict usually refer to grievances with Kiev and the West that Moscow has presented as justification for launching the invasion in February 2022.
They include promises to “denazify” and demilitarize Ukraine, protect Russian speakers in the east of the country, oppose NATO expansion, and stop Ukraine’s geopolitical shift westward.
However, Kiev and the West say Russia's invasion is an imperial-style land grab.
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