President Trump and President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia are speaking on Tuesday as Washington pushes for a cease-fire in Ukraine. Mr. Trump said the topics would include power plants and “dividing up” Ukrainian assets.
The call — which the White House said began at around 10 a.m. Eastern — is the first known conversation between the two leaders since Ukraine agreed to support a U.S.-backed monthlong cease-fire, as long as Russia does the same. While Mr. Trump has stated his desire to broker a truce as quickly as possible, Mr. Putin seems to be seeking more concessions.
“Many elements of a Final Agreement have been agreed to, but much remains,” Mr. Trump wrote on Monday on Truth Social, his social media platform. He added that the war “must end NOW,” and said he was looking forward to the call with Mr. Putin.
Before the call, Mr. Putin projected confidence in a speech to Russian businesspeople. He said Western businesses that left Russia after the invasion of Ukraine and now wish to return would not be able to reacquire their assets for modest sums and would face Russian regulatory scrutiny.
The cease-fire proposal on the table
A week ago, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Michael Waltz, the U.S. national security adviser, sat down for talks in Saudi Arabia with a delegation led by Andriy Yermak, the Ukrainian president’s chief of staff, Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha and Defense Minister Rustem Umerov.
After more than eight hours of talks, the United States and Ukraine issued a joint statement saying that Kyiv would support the Trump administration’s proposal for a 30-day cease-fire with Russia, subject to Russia’s approval. The United States said it would immediately resume providing military aid and intelligence to Ukraine, which the Trump administration had suspended after an explosive U.S.-Ukraine meeting at the White House.
The United States and Ukraine also agreed to conclude “as soon as possible” a deal to develop Ukraine’s critical mineral resources.
Russia’s stance
Mr. Putin has not yet agreed to halt the war that Russia began more than three years ago. He has said the idea for a cease-fire was “the right one and we definitely support it,” but laid out numerous conditions that could delay or derail any truce. That includes demands that Ukraine cease mobilizing new soldiers, training troops or importing weapons for the duration of any pause in fighting.
Mr. Putin also said that Russia would continue to insist on a peace deal that addressed the “original causes” of the war — signaling that he will not stop fighting until he extracts a pledge that Ukraine will not join NATO and that the alliance will reduce its presence in Central and Eastern Europe.
“There are questions that we need to discuss, and I think that we need to talk them through with our American colleagues and partners,” he told a news conference on Thursday, just before meeting with Steve Witkoff, who is Mr. Trump’s special envoy to the Middle East but has also been playing a role in the peace talks over Ukraine.
On Sunday, Mr. Witkoff told CNN that his meeting with Mr. Putin had lasted three to four hours. While he declined to share the specifics of their conversation, he said it went well and that the two sides had “narrowed the differences between them.”
The cease-fire proposal could create tension between Mr. Putin’s desires for a far-reaching victory in Ukraine and for close ties with Mr. Trump.
Conversation topics
The Kremlin’s spokesman, Dmitri S. Peskov, declined to say what topics were on the agenda for the call.
Mr. Trump said on Sunday night that he expected to discuss territorial issues with Mr. Putin as well as the fate of Ukrainian power plants. He also noted that there had already been discussions about “dividing up certain assets.”
“We want to see if we can bring that war to an end,” Mr. Trump said. “Maybe we can. Maybe we can’t, but I think we have a very good chance.”
Mr. Trump did not elaborate on what he meant by assets or power plants, but his comments came on the same day Mr. Witkoff mentioned a “nuclear reactor” in an interview with CBS News.
That appeared be a reference to the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant in southern Ukraine, which Russia seized early in the war and still controls. The six-reactor plant is Europe’s largest, and its proximity to frontline fighting has long raised concerns about the risk of a radiological disaster.
It was not immediately clear, though, whether any discussion about the power plant would focus on Russia giving it up — or finding a way to keep it under any truce.
The power plant sits near the Dnipro River in Ukraine’s southern Zaporizhzhia region, which Russia has officially annexed despite controlling only part of its territory. Surrendering it would mean ceding territory Russia considers its own. It would also give Kyiv’s troops a foothold in a Russian-controlled area that has been relatively protected from Ukrainian attacks thanks to the natural barrier of the large Dnipro River.
At the same time, energy experts say, the nuclear plant is in poor condition after three years of war and restoring full operations would require a lot of time and investment from Russia. That could mean Russia might see an incentive to try trading it in negotiations for something else, such as the easing of Western sanctions on the Russian economy, experts say.
State of the war
President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine has accused Mr. Putin of stalling so that Russia’s army can advance on the battlefield and strengthen his hand in cease-fire talks.
Moscow’s push to drive out Ukrainian troops from most of the Kursk region of Russia in recent days has deprived Kyiv of an important bargaining chip in any potential negotiations.
The moves in Kursk give Russia an opportunity to show Mr. Trump that it holds the momentum on the battlefield. And battlefield maps compiled by both Russian and Western groups analyzing combat footage and satellite images show that Russian forces have already crossed into Ukraine’s Sumy region from Kursk, in what analysts say may be an effort to flank and encircle the remaining Ukrainian troops in Kursk or open a new front in the war.
Mr. Zelensky has accused Russia to preparing to mount a larger offensive into the Sumy region, which is home to hundreds of thousands of people.
Despite the setbacks in Kursk, Kyiv’s forces have stalled a Russian offensive in the eastern Donetsk region of Ukraine and started to win back small patches of land, according to military analysts and Ukrainian soldiers. Military analysts, however, have been debating whether, after more than 15 months on the offensive, Russian brigades are exhausted or are regrouping for a renewed push.
Recent U.S.-Ukraine tensions
Since taking office, Mr. Trump has realigned American foreign policy seemingly in Russia’s favor — including by echoing a Kremlin talking point that blamed Kyiv for starting the war.
That raised alarm in Ukraine about whether Mr. Trump would taper the flow of U.S. military assistance. Strain in the relationship burst into public view on Feb. 28, when Mr. Trump and Vice President JD Vance berated Mr. Zelensky in the Oval Office, saying he was not grateful enough for U.S. support.
Since then, Ukraine has sought to smooth over relations with the Trump administration, and Mr. Zelensky has repeatedly expressed gratitude for American assistance.
Concessions and guarantees
Mr. Rubio has said that Ukraine would have to make concessions over land that Russia had taken since 2014 as part of any agreement to end the war. But he also said that it would be imperative in talks with Moscow to determine what Russia was willing to concede.
Before agreeing to the cease-fire proposal, Ukraine had insisted that any cease-fire include security guarantees, but there has been no indication since that any such guarantees would be provided before any interim cease-fire would take effect.
European allies have pledged further support to Kyiv. Prime Minister Keir Starmer of Britain has said he would continue pressing Mr. Trump for American security guarantees — a lobbying effort that he shares with President Emmanuel Macron of France. Britain and France have already pledged to contribute troops to a peacekeeping force and are trying to enlist other countries across Europe to do the same.
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