Trump called his conversation with Putin “excellent” in tone and atmosphere: “I think it went very well.” Russia and Ukraine could now “immediately start with negotiations on ceasefire – and even more important – to end the war”.
He informed the Ukrainian President Wolodymyr Selenskyj, Chancellor Friedrich Merz (CDU), EU Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen and other EU heads and government heads immediately after his phone call with Putin. According to Trump, the Vatican is available as a host for talks between the warring parties.
Trump later commented much more reserved. He thinks Putin is ready for a ceasefire, he said on Monday afternoon in front of journalists in the White House. “I think he wants to stop,” he said. “If I would believe that President Putin didn’t want to end the matter, I wouldn’t even talk about it.”
Putin had described the two -hour phone call with Trump as “useful” and “very honest”. Ukraine and Russia would now have to “show a maximum will to peace” and “find compromises that satisfy all sides,” said the Russian head of state in front of journalists in Moscow on Monday. Putin evaluated a meeting between delegations of both sides in Istanbul at the end of last week: it “appears that we are on the right track on the whole.”
Putin also said that his government was ready to work with the Ukrainian government on a “memorandum” to prepare a “possible future peace agreement” between the two countries. This document could “include the principles of a regulation, the time frame of a possible peace agreement and so further including a possible ceasefire” if appropriate agreements are made “.
Putin did not give details. The Kremlin boss did not comment on the unconditional 30-day ceasefire in the Ukraine War.
The Ukrainian President Selenskyj declared his willingness to examine the proposal made by Putin to develop a memorandum. However, he has not been there any details so far, he said in the evening in Kyiv.
However, Selenskyj concluded a deduction of Ukrainian troops from Kiev’s previously held parts of Ukraine: “Nobody will withdraw our troops from our areas.” Russia demands that Ukraine withdraw from the Donetsk, Luhansk, Cherson and Saporischschja regions, which Russia had declared annexed, but has not yet fully checked.
Before Trump’s phone call with Putin, he asked the US President “not making any decisions about Ukraine without us,” said Selenskyj. It is about “fundamental questions” that are of great importance for Ukraine.
In a telephone conversation with Trump after his phone call to Putin, several European allies of Ukraine announced, according to the Federal Government, “to” increase the pressure on the Russian side through sanctions “. Trump, Federal Chancellor Merz as well as the heads of state and government of France, Italy and Finland as well as Ukraine, had agreed on the next steps in the efforts of a ceasefire in Ukraine, said government spokesman Stefan Kornelius.
Trump, on the other hand, signaled that he is more interested in normalization of US relationships with Russia and business contacts than in sanctions: Russia could “act on a large scale with the United States if this catastrophic ‘bloodbath’ is over,” he wrote about Truth Social.
Selenskyj later appealed to Washington again not to allow the peace efforts to terminate the Ukraine War. “It is crucial for all of us that the United States does not distance themselves from the conversations and striving for peace,” said Selenskyj in online networks on Monday evening. The only one who benefits from it is Putin.
