US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin will discuss matters this week, officials confirmed on Sunday. The planned talks come as Washington and Kyiv’s European allies pressure Moscow to sign a ceasefire in the three-year war.
United States has recently tabled a temporary halt in hostilities after talks in Saudi Arabia, to which Ukraine agreed. Moscow has not yet given a clear response, though, presenting instead a set of conditions and expressing grave reservations on the ceasefire proposal.
“I expect there will be a call between both presidents this week, and we’re also continuing to engage in discussions with the Ukrainians,” US envoy Steve Witkoff told CNN on Sunday. Witkoff, who met with Putin in Moscow last Thursday, expressed optimism about the upcoming talks, describing them as “really good and positive.”
At the same time, the Russian government said that US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov discussed the implementation of deals reached at a US-Russia summit in Saudi Arabia last month.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, on the other hand, blamed Moscow for extending the war to gain a better position on the battlefield before negotiating a truce.
The Riyadh talks in February were the highest-level US-Russia interaction since the war broke out in February 2022. Trump said on Friday that there was a “very good chance” the war could be over, saying he had asked Putin to leave the Ukrainian forces being driven out of Kursk.
Putin replied he would honor Trump’s appeal if the Ukrainian troops lay down arms. Putin went on to send Trump a message through Witkoff later, reaffirming he was “cautiously optimistic” about finalizing a ceasefire agreement.