US President Donald Trump is to speak today with Russian President Vladimir Putin in a possible pivot point in efforts to end the war in Ukraine and an opportunity for Trump to continue reorienting US foreign policy.
Trump disclosed the upcoming conversation to reporters while flying from Florida to Washington on Air Force One on Sunday evening, while the Kremlin confirmed Putin’s participation yesterday morning.
“We will see if we have something to announce maybe by Tuesday. I will be speaking to President Putin on Tuesday,” Trump said. “A lot of work’s been done over the weekend. We want to see if we can bring that war to an end.”
Photo: EPA-EFE
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov confirmed the plans for the two leaders to speak today, but declined to give details, saying that “we never get ahead of events” and “the content of conversations between two presidents are not subject to any prior discussion.”
European allies are wary of Trump’s affinity for Putin and his hardline stance toward Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, who faced sharp criticism when he visited the Oval Office a little more than two weeks ago.
Although Russia failed in its initial goal to topple Ukraine with its invasion three years ago, it still controls large swaths of the country.
Photo: AP
Trump said land and power plants are part of the conversation around bringing the war to a close.
“We will be talking about land. We will be talking about power plants,” he said, a process he described as “dividing up certain assets.”
US special envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff last week visited Moscow to advance negotiations.
Russia illegally annexed four Ukrainian regions after launching its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 — the Donetsk and Luhansk regions in the east and the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions in the southeast of the country — but does not fully control any of the four. Last year, Putin listed Kyiv’s withdrawal of troops from all four regions as one of the demands for peace.
In 2014, the Kremlin also annexed Crimea from Ukraine.
In the occupied part of the Zaporizhzhia region, Moscow controls the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant — the largest in Europe. The plant has repeatedly been caught in the crossfire since the invasion. The International Atomic Energy Agency has frequently expressed alarm about the plant amid fears of a potential nuclear catastrophe.
After a brief lull in drone fire last week, both sides appeared to have stepped up attacks yesterday.
Ukrainian forces launched a drone attack on southern Russia, sparking a blaze at an oil refinery, while Moscow launched a barrage of nearly 200 drones against Ukraine.
About 500 people in the southern Ukrainian region of Odesa lost power because of the attacks, and one person was wounded there, Governor Oleg Kiper said, adding that several buildings were damaged, including a pre-school.
Putin last week said he would back a ceasefire, but only if it led to “long-term peace and addresses the root causes of the crisis.”
Among Putin’s demands are that Ukraine never join the NATO military alliance, that European peacekeepers not be deployed on Ukrainian territory, and that Moscow be allowed to keep all the land it currently occupies.
Since Russia seized Crimea in 2014 and launched its full-scale offensive against Ukraine in February 2022, Moscow now controls about one-fifth of Ukraine.
Zelenskiy has pushed back at Putin’s demands, saying the Russian leader does not really want peace.
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