LONDON — Russia launched more than 100 drones into Ukraine following the conclusion of a phone call between Presidents Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin, Ukraine’s air force said, and as the world waited for what Trump said would be an immediate resumption of peace talks between Moscow and Kyiv.
Ukraine’s air force wrote on Telegram that its forces shot down 35 of the 108 Russian drones launched into the country overnight, with a further 58 jammed or otherwise neutralized while in flight. The air force reported damage on the ground in four Ukrainian regions.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said its forces shot down eight Ukrainian drones overnight.
Cross-border drone exchanges occur near-nightly and have increased in size and sophistication throughout the 3-year-old war. Monday night’s barrage came despite Trump’s latest assurance that a peace deal between the two sides is possible, following a phone call with Putin that lasted two hours.
“I think something’s going to happen,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office after the call. “It’s a very, very big egos involved, I tell you, big egos involved. But I think something’s going to happen. And if I thought that President Putin did not want to get this over with, I wouldn’t even be talking about it because I’d just pull out.”
Despite the failure of peace talks to date — including a chaotic meeting between Ukrainian and Russian negotiators in Istanbul, Turkey, last week — Trump still appeared confident of success.
In a post to his Truth Social website on Monday, Trump said Russia and Ukraine will “immediately” start negotiations toward a ceasefire. Kyiv has repeatedly requested a full 30-day pause to the fighting to facilitate peace talks. The Kremlin has so far dodged the proposal.
When questioned if he had asked Putin to meet with him during the call on Monday, Trump replied, “Of course.”
“I said, ‘When are we going to end this, Vladimir?’” Trump said. “I said, ‘When are we going to end this bloodshed, this, this bloodbath?’ It’s a bloodbath. And, I do believe he wants to end it.”
Putin’s own statement showed no sign of concessions. “Russia’s position is clear,” the president said in a statement to the media after the call. “Eliminating the root causes of this crisis is what matters most to us,” Putin said, per a Kremlin readout.
Trump’s threats of new sanctions on Russia do not appear to have pushed the Kremlin away from its maximalist war goals, which essentially equate to Ukrainian capitulation.
Those demands include the annexation of four partially-occupied Ukrainian regions — plus the retention of Crimea, which Russia seized in 2014 — Kyiv’s demilitarization, a permanent block on Ukrainian accession to NATO and the “denazification” of the country — a nebulous demand based on Russia’s false representation of the Ukrainian government as a far-right dictatorship.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy — with whom Trump also spoke on Monday — has sought to present Kyiv as ready and willing to make peace, instead framing Putin as the key obstacle to Trump’s desired deal.
“This is a defining time,” Zelenskyy wrote in a post to Telegram on Monday. “Now the world can see whether its leaders have the capacity to ensure an end to the war and the establishment of a real, lasting peace.”
“I confirmed to President Trump that we in Ukraine are ready for a complete and unconditional ceasefire, as the United States, in particular, has been talking about,” he continued.
“It is important not to dilute this offer. If the Russians are not ready to stop the killings, there must be stronger sanctions for that. Pressure on Russia will encourage it to make real peace — this is obvious to everyone in the world,” he said.
“We must ensure that Russia is prepared to hold such productive negotiations,” Zelensyy wrote.” It is very important for all of us that the United States does not distance itself from the negotiations and achieving peace, because the only one interested in this is Putin.”
If Putin drags out or blocks real negotiations, Zelenskyy said, “America and the whole world behave accordingly, including responding with additional sanctions. Russia must end the war that it started, and it can do so any day. Ukraine is always ready for peace.”
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