President Donald Trump said on Sunday he will speak with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday, as the administration aims to end the war in Ukraine.
Ukraine expressed interest in accepting the U.S. proposal for an unconditional 30-day cease-fire during peace talks in Saudi Arabia last week. Russia, however, remains hesitant.
Answering questions from reporters aboard Air Force One, the president said he will be speaking with Putin soon to presumably address Russia’s hesitancy toward the proposed cease-fire.
“We’re doing pretty well, I think, with Russia. We’ll see if we have something to announce maybe by Tuesday, I’ll be speaking to President Putin on Tuesday,” Trump said.
“A lot of work’s been done over the weekend, we want to see if we can bring that war to an end,” he added. “Maybe we can, maybe we can’t, but I think we have a very good chance.”
The Kremlin confirmed the plans for Putin and Trump to speak on Tuesday but declined to disclose what the conversation would entail.
Trump said he and his Russian counterpart will discuss concessions involving land and power plants, adding that they’ve already discussed “dividing up certain assets.”
After Ukraine agreed to the 30-day cease-fire outlined by the U.S., Moscow made additional demands, including a total halt on foreign military aid to Ukraine and that Kyiv relinquish control of the Russian-occupied regions of Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has said repeatedly that he won’t accept those territorial concessions.
Trump’s conversation with Putin will come more than two weeks after Zelensky sparred with the president and vice president in the White House. The heated disagreement led the U.S. to halt military aid and intelligence sharing with Ukraine.
Diplomatic relations between the U.S. and Ukraine have since mended as made evident by the recent breakthrough meeting in Saudi Arabia, where the Trump administration agreed to immediately lift its pause on aid and intelligence. That meeting came after Zelensky expressed regret over the Oval Office blowup and said Ukraine would be ready to negotiate a peace deal with Russia.
U.S. Special Envoy Steve Witkoff, who met with Putin on Thursday in what he described as a “solution-based discussion” around peace negotiations, told CNN on Sunday that the Russian leader has “indicated that he accepts the philosophy of President Trump” in wanting to see the war end. The Middle East envoy, who has been been a key negotiator regarding the Russia-Ukraine war, voiced confidence that a pause in fighting could come within weeks.
While the Russian president hasn’t backed the Trump administration’s unconditional proposal yet, he has publicly said he agrees with pursuing a cease-fire plan. Putin has also said Russia is working to restore diplomatic relations with the U.S. after they were “destroyed” by the Biden administration, for which he appears to have had less respect than the Trump administration.
“Overall, the situation is starting to move,” Putin said on Friday. “Let’s see what comes out of this.”