WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump and Russian leader Vladimir Putin are set to speak in a phone call Tuesday to discuss ending the war in Ukraine, the Kremlin confirmed Monday, as the United States seeks Moscow’s support for a 30-day ceasefire proposal.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Monday that the call will be mainly about settling the conflict in Ukraine but is also “an important step that sets the tone for the movement to revive relations between the states.” Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine began in 2022.
Trump announced the planned call Sunday, stating there was “a very good chance” of reaching a deal. “We are doing pretty well, I think, with Russia,” he told reporters aboard Air Force One. “We’ll see if we have something to announce, maybe by Tuesday.”
When asked what concessions Russia would make in a potential deal, Trump said discussions have taken place about “dividing up” assets. “We will be talking about land. We will be talking about power plants,” he said. “I think a lot of it has already been discussed at length by both sides, Ukraine and Russia.”
Last week, U.S. officials said “the ball is now in Russia’s court” after Ukraine agreed to the ceasefire deal. Mr. Putin has, so far, resisted fully endorsing the U.S. proposal, citing “nuances” that require “painstaking research” as his troops seek to push Ukrainian forces out of the southwestern Russian region of Kursk and strip Kyiv of a key bargaining chip in the talks.
Mr. Putin said Thursday that Russia would agree to a ceasefire only if it leads to long-term peace, hinting at conditions such as barring Ukraine from receiving U.S. military aid or mobilizing new forces. He also questioned how such a ceasefire would be enforced.
Russia has consistently put forward maximalist demands that Ukraine views as unacceptable. In June, Mr. Putin said Russia would immediately stop hostilities if Ukraine surrenders four southeastern regions that Russian troops partly occupy and renounces plans to join NATO.
Moscow also dismissed proposals from Western countries to deploy foreign peacekeeping forces in Ukraine as a guarantee of its long-term security.
It remains unclear what security assurances Ukraine would receive to protect itself from future attacks or whether Trump would secure any meaningful concessions from Mr. Putin.
Steve Witkoff, an envoy for Trump, said Sunday that his most recent meeting with Mr. Putin was “positive” and that differences between Russian and Ukrainian officials appear to have “narrowed.”
“I was with the president all day yesterday. I’ll be with him today,” Mr. Witkoff said of Trump, speaking on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “We’re sitting with him discussing how to narrow it even further.”
Mr. Witkoff, when asked whether Mr. Putin is the impediment to a peace deal, said: “I don’t want to put words in President Putin’s mouth, but I think he’s indicated that he accepts the philosophy of President Trump. President Trump wants to see an end to this.”
Mr. Witkoff said he doesn’t disagree with Trump’s assessment that a peace deal could be reached within weeks. “This is a highly, very complicated situation,” Mr. Witkoff said. “And yet we are bridging the gap between two sides.”
Sen. Mike Rounds, R-S.D., struck a more cautious note moments later on the same television program. “Time will tell,” Mr. Rounds said, “whether Putin is deceiving us.”
Mr. Rounds said Mr. Putin started the war and is the aggressor in it. If Mr. Putin is changing his mind and recognizing the damage that his war has done to his economy and military, Mr. Rounds added, there may be a way to move forward as long as there is an “enforceable peace.”
“Whatever agreements we make, they have to be enforceable or they will not work when we’re dealing with Mr. Putin,” he said.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha on Monday outlined what he called Kyiv’s “non-negotiables.”
“There are fundamental issues,” Mr. Sybiha said in an RBC-Ukraine interview. “Ukraine will never recognize occupied territories. Second, no country has the right to veto the choice of the Ukrainian people or Ukraine’s decision to join any alliances, whether it is the European Union or NATO.”
U.S. national security adviser Michael Waltz said Sunday that Ukraine’s permanent membership in NATO is “highly unlikely,” echoing Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s remarks last month that membership was not on the table in recognition of “hard-power realities on the ground.”
When asked what other security guarantees Ukraine would seek, Mr. Sybiha said that while alliance membership “remains the most effective security guarantee,” other measures may include air and naval patrols performed by allied forces and continued support for Ukraine’s defense industry.
France and Britain have led the effort to create a “coalition of the willing” — countries that would help guarantee any agreement, including by putting troops inside Ukraine. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s spokesman said Monday that more than 30 countries had joined the coalition. “This will be a significant force, with a significant number of countries providing troops and a larger group contributing in other ways,” he said.
Western leaders have called on Russia to reciprocate Ukraine’s agreement to a ceasefire “on equal terms” and threatened to further exert pressure on Moscow if it hijacks the proposal, according to a statement released following the foreign ministers meeting of the Group of Seven nations in Charlevoix, Canada.
The ministers “discussed imposing further costs on Russia in case such a ceasefire is not agreed, including through further sanctions, caps on oil prices, as well as additional support for Ukraine, and other means,” the statement said, adding that the West may go ahead with a plan to use interest generated from frozen Russian sovereign assets to support Ukraine.
One of the most significant measures Russia faced since the 2022 invasion was the freezing of more than $300 billion in Russian central bank assets held in the West. For the European Union, which last year adopted a plan to funnel revenue to Ukraine if needed, it was a way to pressure Moscow without inviting legal challenges or undermining trust in their financial systems.
Mr. Putin condemned this strategy as “theft.” Paris has recently proposed using the assets as collateral, allowing them to be seized if Moscow were to violate a potential ceasefire agreement.
First Published: March 17, 2025, 3:18 p.m.
Updated: March 17, 2025, 6:17 p.m.
