Donald Trump has said he will speak to Vladimir Putin about ending the war in Ukraine on Tuesday and that discussions are already ongoing about “dividing up certain assets” between the warring parties.

US officials expressed optimism on Sunday that a ceasefire deal could be reached in weeks.

Mr Trump told reporters on board Air Force One: “I think we’ll be talking about land... we’ll be talking about power plants.

“I think we have a lot of it already discussed very much by both sides, Ukraine and Russia. We’re already talking about that, dividing up certain assets.”

It comes as Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko said Ukraine must be excluded from Nato membership as part of its “ironclad security guarantees guarantees” for a peace deal.

“Part of these guarantees should be the neutral status of Ukraine, the refusal of Nato countries to accept it into the alliance,” he told Russian outlet Izvestia in an interview on Monday.