President Trump stated he would converse with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia on Monday to attempt to safe a cease-fire within the struggle between Russia and Ukraine.
“HOPEFULLY IT WILL BE A PRODUCTIVE DAY, A CEASEFIRE WILL TAKE PLACE, AND THIS VERY VIOLENT WAR, A WAR THAT SHOULD HAVE NEVER HAPPENED, WILL END,” Mr. Trump wrote, in all caps, on social media on Saturday. The Kremlin confirmed that the leaders would converse.
Mr. Trump stated he would additionally name President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, who has agreed to an unconditional and rapid cease-fire, in addition to leaders of the NATO alliance.
Friedrich Merz, Germany’s new chancellor, instructed reporters in Rome on Sunday that he had spoken with Secretary of State Marco Rubio about Mr. Trump’s upcoming telephone name with Mr. Putin. Talking with reporters after attending Pope Leo XIV’s inaugural Mass, Mr. Merz stated that he and the leaders of France and Britain have been planning to attempt to converse with Mr. Trump earlier than that decision.
“My sturdy impression is that each Europeans and Individuals are decided to work collectively, however now additionally in a targeted method, to make sure that this horrible struggle ends quickly,” Mr. Merz stated.
Their conversations will happen as Russia intensifies its assaults in Ukraine, together with a drone strike on Saturday in opposition to a civilian bus that killed at the very least 9 individuals, based on native residents and Ukrainian authorities.
What are the newest developments?
Russia and Ukraine held direct peace talks in Istanbul on Friday for the primary time because the early months of the struggle, leading to an settlement to conduct what could be the most important prisoner swap of the battle.
However the two sides did not dealer a brief cease-fire or a gathering between their two leaders, demonstrating how far aside the combatants remained on steps towards ending the battle.
Throughout the talks, the Russian staff instructed the Ukrainians that, to attain the cease-fire they have been looking for, Kyiv ought to withdraw fully from the 4 areas in japanese Ukraine that Moscow annexed in late 2022, based on a Turkish official conversant in the discussions. Ukraine nonetheless controls huge swaths of that land, together with two regional capitals.
Such calls for — which Russian officers additionally made throughout conferences with American negotiators this 12 months — referred to as into query whether or not Mr. Putin is definitely ready to finish the struggle.
What’s at stake?
The stakes couldn’t be increased within the largest land struggle in Europe since World Struggle II, which started after Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022.
Mr. Zelensky desires an instantaneous and unconditional cease-fire, adopted by negotiations over a possible peace deal. However Mr. Putin, who seems assured of Russia’s higher hand on the battlefield, is refusing to cease preventing earlier than he secures main concessions from Kyiv and the West.
The USA was “open to just about any mechanism” that would engender a long-lasting peace, stated Mr. Rubio, including, “We stay dedicated to that.”
Mr. Putin additionally desires to maintain the eye of President Trump, who’s promising a brand new period of heat ties between Moscow and Washington, and to persuade the White Home that he isn’t stonewalling the peace in Ukraine that Mr. Trump promised as a presidential candidate.
However the Russian chief can be nonetheless looking for Ukraine’s capitulation, each on the battlefield and in negotiations, after greater than three years of full-scale struggle that has come to outline his rule.
What’s Russia’s place?
When Mr. Putin and different Russian leaders discuss ending the struggle, they give attention to what they name the “root causes” of the battle — Kremlin shorthand for a variety of points together with the existence of Ukraine as a completely unbiased and sovereign nation aligned with the West.
Particularly, the Kremlin says it desires management over 5 Ukrainian territories, together with massive areas of land it has did not seize regardless of the years of struggle. Mr. Putin has additionally demanded that Ukraine comply with strict limitations on its navy, and to not be a part of NATO. He has additionally demanded a suspension of all Western navy help to Ukraine earlier than a cease-fire begins.
From the beginning, the Istanbul negotiations weren’t anticipated to yield any large breakthroughs. However the assembly was a tactical win for Mr. Putin, who managed to begin the talks with out first agreeing to a battlefield cease-fire that Ukraine and virtually all of its Western backers had sought as a precondition for negotiations.
What’s Ukraine’s place?
With Russia holding the initiative on the entrance for greater than 16 months, many Ukrainians have concluded that they’re unlikely to drive the Russians off their lands militarily. And so Ukraine desires to freeze the preventing the place it’s after which make a case that any formal recognition of Russia’s annexation of Ukrainian lands violate primary tenets of worldwide regulation and set a harmful precedent.
Mr. Zelensky desires an instantaneous and unconditional cease-fire, adopted by negotiations over a possible peace deal. Ukraine has additionally stated it is not going to settle for any limitations on its navy. Its European allies have vowed to proceed to work to strengthen Ukraine after any truce to make sure Russia just isn’t tempted to assault once more. There are various different sophisticated points at play, amongst them the return of 1000’s of Ukrainian kids taken from their households to Russia.
Safak Timur, Maria Varenikova and Liubov Sholudko contributed reporting.