President Donald Trump appeared to bow out of directly negotiating the peace deal between Russia and Ukraine after a two-hour conversation with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
While the president has been publicly pressing for a ceasefire for months, his post after the call on Monday indicated talks were imminent, but it was just the beginning.
“Russia and Ukraine will immediately start negotiations toward a Ceasefire and, more importantly, an END to the War,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
He also suggested the U.S. would take a backseat moving forward after vowing he would bring about a quick end to the war on the campaign trail and expressing frustration in recent weeks.
“The conditions for that will 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,” the president wrote in his post.
Trump claimed that his phone conversation with Putin went “very well” and that the “tone and spirit of the conversation were excellent.”
While the conversation lacked a breakthrough announcement, the president did share that Russia wants to do “largescale trade” with the U.S. when the war is over, and he agreed.
Trump also said he had informed the Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, French President Emmanuel Macron, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, and Finnish President Alexander Stubb right after his call.
He wrote that the Vatican is interested in hosting negotiations. He ended his post with, “let the process begin!”
While Trump suggested progress was being made, Putin revealed few details in his response to the call or what Russia would be willing to concede in negotiations to end the war.
Putin said Moscow was ready to work with Ukraine on a potential peace deal and that efforts to end the war were “generally on the right track.”
“We have agreed with the president of the United States that Russia will propose and is ready to work with the Ukrainian side on a memorandum on a possible future peace accord,” Putin told reporters after according to Reuters.
He said the memorandum would define principles and timing of a “possible peace agreement.”
Zelensky also spoke after his call with Trump on Monday. He rejected Putin’s demand that Ukraine pull troops from four Ukrainian regions in a press conference he held after the president‘s call with Putin.
He said that it means the Russians “don’t want peace.”
The phone conversation between Trump and Putin came after the first direct talks since 2022 between Moscow and Kyiv took place last week in Turkey, but they failed to reach an agreement.
While Trump was back in Washington, Vice President J.D. Vance spoke to reporters on Monday on Air Force Two, where he said the U.S. is willing to walk away from negotiations.
Vance spoke with Trump before his call with Putin. He said the president has made it clear that the U.S. is “not going to spin its wheels here.”
The post Trump Bails Out of Ukraine Peace Talks and Claims the Win appeared first on The Daily Beast.
