Donald Trump shakes hands with Vladimir Putin after their meeting at the presidential palace in Helsinki, 16 July 2018. Photo: Alexei Nikolsky / EPA-EFE

Vladimir Putin rejected a ceasefire with Ukraine following a two-hour call with US President Donald Trump on Monday, stressing that Russia would only agree to a truce for a “certain period” if the “corresponding agreements” were first reached.

Speaking to reporters in Sochi after what he called a “frank” and “substantive” conversation with Trump, Putin said the US president had “expressed his position on the cessation of hostilities and a ceasefire”, but emphasised that Russia was only ready to work with Ukraine on a “memorandum on a possible future peace agreement” rather than a ceasefire deal.

While Moscow “supports a peaceful resolution of the Ukrainian crisis”, Putin said, its priority remained to address what it calls the “root causes” of the war — a frequent Kremlin demand that Ukraine drastically cut back ties with NATO and become a neutral state as a prerequisite for any peace deal.

Putin’s tone was in stark contrast to that of Trump, who wrote on Truth Social that his call with the Russian leader “went very well” and that ceasefire talks between Moscow and Kyiv, potentially hosted by the Vatican, would begin “immediately”.

Trump also suggested that the US would step back from its role in the peace process, with conditions for a ceasefire to instead be “negotiated between the two parties, as it can only be, because they know details of a negotiation that nobody else would be aware of”.

Writing on X after holding two calls with Trump on Monday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said the world faced a “defining moment” that would determine “whether its leaders are truly capable of securing a ceasefire and achieving real, lasting peace”.

Ukraine remained “ready for direct negotiations with Russia in any format that brings results”, Zelensky said. He also urged the US not to distance itself from the peace process, “because the only one who benefits from that is Putin”.

Trump said that he had spoken with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, French President Emmanuel Macron and Finnish President Alexander Stubb, as well as Zelensky, following his call with Putin, as EU leaders encourage the US to step up pressure on Moscow.

After speaking with Trump, Merz wrote on X that Europe and the US were “very united” in their support of Ukraine “on the path to a ceasefire”, and that the EU had agreed to place further sanctions on Moscow in an effort to push the Kremlin to end the war.