President Donald Trump said a ceasefire talk between Russia and Ukraine would begin “quickly” following a call from Russian leader Vladimir Putin.
In a post about the Truth Society, Trump said he believes the call has “extremely worked” and that he believes Russia wants to trade on a massive scale with the United States when this devastating bloody finishes.
“After Ukrainian President Voldymie Zelenkie, Ursula von Leyen, President of the European Commission, French President Emmanuel Macron, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, German Prime Minister Friedrich Melonz, German Prime Minister Friedrich Melonz, Alexander Stubb and President, Pope said he was very interested in starting negotiations.
Before Trump’s social media statement, Putin had issued a statement saying, “If a proper agreement is reached, a ceasefire is possible,” but he did not explain what those agreements were.
However, he said that Kremlin press chief Dmitry Peskov or Vladimir Ushakov, head of the Moscow negotiation team, will provide details later.
“Russia is ready to work with the Ukrainian side in a memorandum of understanding on the possibility of future peace agreements on the definition of many positions, such as the principles of solutions, timing of peace agreements, etc., when a suitable agreement is reached, and the timing of a peace agreement that may include a ceasefire for a certain period, if a suitable agreement is reported, for example, more than two hours.
Russia has previously argued to address what the Kremlin calls the “root cause” of the war, including the Ukrainian desire to join both the EU and NATO.
According to Moscow, it includes alleged commitment that NATO would not expand east, the Ukrainian government’s discrimination against Russian ethnic groups, and what Putin calls Ukraine’s “de-demobilization.”
Putin and Russia have so far failed to provide evidence of these allegations.
Increased frustration
A White House spokesman commented on the call Monday, saying Trump’s goal was to “see a ceasefire.”
Karoline Leavitt also acknowledged that the US president was “very unhappy with both sides” of the war.
“Nothing will happen until Putin and I are together,” the US president told reporters on May 15.
US Vice President JD Vance said on Monday that he intends to press Putin to press him as to whether he is really interested in ending a full-scale Ukraine invasion.
“I realized there was a bit of a deadlock here,” Vance said.
He said he wasn’t sure if Putin had a strategy to end the war, but added that if meaningful progress towards peace is not made, Washington may leave his attempts to mediate any deal.
It was Putin himself who proposed overseeing consultations between Russia and Ukraine, but he did not accept an invitation to talks in Istanbul last week and instead sent a low-level delegation.
The Ukrainian president met with his team early on Monday and to “evaluate the outcomes” of those talks, Kiev did everything to bring the ceasefire closer, saying that Russia is a barrier to peace.
“The May 15-16 meeting showed the world that they were ready to bring peace closer and, accordingly, the need to put pressure on Russia to end the war,” Zelensky wrote in Telegram.
He said the most important outcome of the consultation was an agreement to exchange 1,000 prisoners from each side. Preparations for that swap are underway by Ukrainian security services.
