US President Donald Trump said yesterday he would speak to the presidents of Russia and Ukraine tomorrow following talks between the two sides at which a Ukrainian official said Moscow’s negotiators voiced new demands before a ceasefire could be agreed.
In Moscow, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told Russian news agencies preparations were underway for a conversation between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Trump.
The talks in Turkey on Friday were the first time the sides had held face-to-face talks since March 2022, weeks after Russia’s full-scale invasion of its smaller neighbour.
A senior Ukrainian official familiar with the talks said Russian negotiators demanded Ukraine pull its troops out of all Ukrainian regions claimed by Moscow before they would agree to a ceasefire.
Trump, writing on Truth Social, said he would speak with Putin to discuss stopping the war at 10am Eastern (1400 GMT) tomorrow.
“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,” he wrote.
He said he would speak afterward with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and various members of Nato.
“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.”
Trump had offered to travel to Turkey for the talks while in the Gulf last week if Putin would also attend, but Putin sent a team of negotiators instead.
The president has been pressuring Putin and Zelenskiy to agree to a ceasefire in the more than three-year-old war.
The Kremlin declined to comment on the terms that Russia had put forward at Friday’s meeting. The two countries have not specified when that would happen.
Zelenskiy called yesterday for stronger sanctions on Moscow after a Russian drone killed nine bus passengers in the Sumy region of northeastern Ukraine. “This was a deliberate killing of civilians,” he said.
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