United States President Donald Trump has said he will speak with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, on Monday to discuss an end to the war in Ukraine. His announcement came a day after direct talks between Russia and Ukraine, hosted by Turkiye, ended inconclusively.
Before Trump’s call with Putin, European leaders spoke to the US president and voiced their hopes that Putin would accept a ceasefire. Trump said he also plans to speak to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy after talking to Putin.
Here is where talks on a potential ceasefire between Kyiv and Moscow stand more than three years after Russia launched a full-fledged invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
What did Trump say?
In a post on his Truth Social platform, Trump wrote that he would speak to Putin on a call at 10am (14:00 GMT). “THE SUBJECTS OF THE CALL WILL BE, STOPPING THE ‘BLOODBATH’ THAT IS KILLING, ON AVERAGE, MORE THAN 5000 RUSSIAN AND UKRAINIAN SOLDIERS A WEEK, AND TRADE,” Trump said in the post.
He added that, after speaking to Putin, he would also speak to Zelenskyy and various NATO members.
“A CEASEFIRE WILL TAKE PLACE, AND THIS VERY VIOLENT WAR, A WAR THAT SHOULD HAVE NEVER HAPPENED, WILL END. GOD BLESS US ALL!!!”
What happened during the Russia-Ukraine talks in Istanbul?
On Friday, Turkiye hosted direct talks between Russia and Ukraine for the first time since the early days of the war at Istanbul’s Dolmabahce Palace.
Proposed by Putin, the talks were originally scheduled for Thursday but were deferred by a day. Before the talks, Zelenskyy had announced that he would personally attend if Putin also joined the meeting.
However, on Wednesday, the Kremlin announced that Putin would not attend and instead announced a negotiating team led by a former culture minister who had also headed previous Russian delegations in unsuccessful talks on the war in Ukraine.
In response, Zelenskyy, who was in Ankara, where he met Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, appointed his defence minister to lead the Ukrainian delegation.
The talks were ultimately held on Friday but failed to yield any breakthrough on a ceasefire. However, the two sides reached a prisoner exchange deal. Representatives from both sides confirmed that each country had agreed to release 1,000 prisoners of war. The leader of the Russian delegation and adviser to Putin, Vladimir Medinsky, said the swap would take place “in the coming days”.
The two teams also discussed a potential meeting between Putin and Zelenskyy, whose legitimacy as Ukraine’s leader has frequently been questioned by the Russian president.
What is holding up a ceasefire?
Zelenskyy said Putin’s empty seat at the negotiating table kept a ceasefire from taking shape because Russia was represented by a low-level delegation of officials who had not been given the power to make decisions.
But while the Ukrainian leader was critical of Putin, Trump appeared empathetic. At a news conference in Doha, Qatar, on the second leg of his Middle East trip last week, Trump suggested it was unrealistic to have expected Putin to attend the talks unless the US president attended too.
He doubled down on that view hours later. “Nothing’s going to happen until Putin and I get together,” Trump told reporters on Thursday on an Air Force One flight to the United Arab Emirates, which the US president visited after Qatar.
“Everyone could see that the Russian delegation in Istanbul was of a very low level. None of them were people who actually make decisions in Russia. Still, I sent our team,” Zelenskyy wrote in an X post on Friday after the talks in Turkiye concluded.
What is each side saying?
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov confirmed to Russian news agencies that Putin would speak with Trump on Monday.
Meanwhile, Zelenskyy met US Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio in Rome on Sunday on the margins of Pope Leo XIV’s inaugural Mass. “We discussed negotiations in Istanbul to where the Russians sent a low level delegation of non-decision-makers,” Zelenskyy wrote in another X post.
“I reaffirmed that Ukraine is ready to be engaged in real diplomacy and underscored the importance of a full and unconditional ceasefire as soon as possible.”
On Friday, after the talks, Zelenskyy wrote on X: “President Trump wants to end this war. We need to keep working closely with him and stay as coordinated as possible.” He also said long-term US support is essential.
Ukraine is calling for an unconditional, 30-day ceasefire. Russia, however, has raised concerns that Ukraine might use such a truce to rearm and mobilise more troops.
What is Europe saying?
Before Trump’s call with Putin, leaders of the United Kingdom, the US, Italy, France and Germany discussed the war in Ukraine, a spokesperson representing British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s office said on Monday.
French President Emmanuel Macron wrote in an X post that the conversation, which took place on Sunday, was between him, Trump, Starmer, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni. “Tomorrow, President Putin must show he wants peace by accepting the 30-day unconditional ceasefire proposed by President Trump and backed by Ukraine and Europe,” Macron wrote.
In an X post, Merz echoed Macron’s sentiments that Putin must accept the ceasefire proposal. “We want to continue this exchange today,” he wrote.
In an X post, Meloni said Moscow ought to “seriously engage” through direct contact.
What could happen during the call?
“We hear from the Russian side that it’s going to be a very significant call, and the hopes are high in terms of Putin talking directly to Trump to settle the war in Ukraine and to settle some economic issues concerning bilateral relations with the United States,” Marina Miron, a postdoctoral researcher at the Defence Studies Department at King’s College London, told Al Jazeera.
On the other hand, Miron said, the Ukrainian side is sceptical, “saying that this is just something for Putin to drag his feet”.
She explained that there can be three possible outcomes from the phone call.
First, Putin and Trump could agree on some sort of a ceasefire. Second, they could disagree or find middle ground. But Miron postulated that a third option is the most likely outcome: “We have to understand that the Russian side, while it’s ready to talk, it will say we are ready for a ceasefire but here is the list of our conditions.”
“I think it is important here to signal that Europe has pretty much no role in this to play. Ukraine has not much of a say either if this is going to be settled between Putin and Trump,” Miron said.
Referring to the news of European leaders trying to “influence Trump before the call to advocate for the European position”, Miron said: “I don’t think that’s going to have any impact on Trump’s way of talking to Putin.”
“Trump understands that the United States doesn’t have a lot of options here either. Either they cut off all the support to Ukraine and force elections, or they continue supporting Ukraine in order for Ukraine to be able to settle it on the battlefield with the Russians,” Miron said, adding that the second option is very difficult, given other priorities that the Trump administration has. Trump had advocated for scaling back US military aid to Ukraine.
What is the state of the war?
On Sunday, Russia launched its largest drone attack since the beginning of the war, Ukraine said, killing at least one woman. The Ukrainian air force said Russia launched 273 drones on Sunday morning. Later in the day, Kyiv’s intelligence service claimed that it believed Russia planned to fire an intercontinental ballistic missile to intimidate the West. It was not clear if it actually happened. Moscow has not yet responded to these allegations.
Trump had pledged to bring a swift end to the war. And starting in February, representatives from the US had separate meetings with Russian and Ukrainian officials in Saudi Arabia. All three sides agreed on temporary deals, maintaining Black Sea safety and halting attacks on energy infrastructure. Russia and Ukraine blamed each other multiple times for reneging on the terms of these deals, which have now expired.
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