The US President will also hold consultations with NATO leaders to assess the way forward after the Istanbul meeting.
US President Donald Trump will speak this coming Monday with his Russian and Ukrainian counterparts, Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelensky, at the beginning of an international round of telephone conversations that the American president will undertake to end the bloodbath that is the war in Ukraine.
The talks will begin at 10:00 a.m. local time in Washington, D.C. (4:00 p.m. in mainland Spain and the Balearic Islands), Trump announced on his Truth Social account. In addition to Putin and Zelensky, Trump will also speak with NATO leaders in what he hopes will be a “productive day.”
Trump hopes, at best, for “a ceasefire and an end to this violent war, which should never have happened.”
Monday’s talks with the Russian and Ukrainian leaders will be Trump’s first since last Friday’s meeting in Istanbul between Russian and Ukrainian delegations—the first in three years—during which they finalized an exchange of a total of 2,000 prisoners of war and the upcoming delivery of their respective conditions for a ceasefire.
This past Friday, in an interview with Fox, Trump lamented the erosion that the war in Ukraine has had on both leaders; Putin, “tired” of a conflict that has damaged his image, and Zelensky, increasingly burdened by his constant requests for help.
“I think Putin is tired of all this, and it’s not looking good for him,” Trump declared. “You have to think that if his tanks hadn’t gotten stuck in the mud on the way to kyiv, the war would have been over in five hours,” he added.
When asked if he believed Putin was an obstacle to peace, Trump ignored the question and insisted once again that the Ukrainian president is prolonging an increasingly stifling situation. “That’s what I always say about him: He doesn’t hold the cards. He’s facing a massive army, and his skills are diminishing,” the US president said.
