UNITED States (US) President Donald Trump has said that Russia and Ukraine would begin immediate negotiations for a ceasefire on their three-year-old war.
Trump disclosed this in a social media post late Monday, May 19, following his call with President Vladimir Putin, during which he signalled that he was not prepared to join Europe in imposing new sanctions to pressure Moscow.
“Russia and Ukraine will immediately start negotiations toward a ceasefire and, more importantly, an end to the war,” Trump wrote, adding later at the White House that he thought “some progress is being made.”
Trump said that Pope Leo had expressed interest in hosting the negotiations at the Vatican, and he shared the plan with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, along with the leaders of the European Union, France, Italy, Germany, and Finland during a group call held after his conversation with the Russian leader.
Putin expressed gratitude to Trump for backing the revival of direct talks between Moscow and Kyiv, following last week’s face-to-face negotiations between the two sides in Turkey.
“We have agreed with the president of the United States that Russia will propose and is ready to work with the Ukrainian side on a memorandum on a possible future peace accord,” Putin told reporters.
The ICIR reported that Trump was scheduled to speak with Putin on Monday on the need to end the war in Ukraine.
Trump had bragged that meaningful progress toward peace was unlikely without a direct meeting between him and Putin. This came as delegates from the warring nations gathered last week in Istanbul for their first talks since March 2022, following a proposal for immediate ceasefire negotiations put forward by Trump, European leaders, and Ukraine.
While signs that Ukraine and Russia will maintain direct contact suggest progress after more than three years of war, Monday’s flurry of talks once again fell short of expectations for a breakthrough.
European leaders choose to step up pressure on Russia with additional sanctions after Trump briefed them on his call with Putin, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said late Monday.
However, Trump did not seem prepared to follow suit. When asked why he hadn’t imposed new sanctions on Moscow to push for a peace deal, as he had previously threatened, he told reporters: “Well, because I think there’s a chance of getting something done, and if you do that, you can also make it much worse. But there could be a time when that’s going to happen.”
The ICIR reported that European leaders and Ukraine have called for Russia to agree to an immediate ceasefire, while Trump has emphasised getting Putin to commit to a 30-day truce. However, Putin has resisted, insisting that certain conditions must be met first.
Russian state news agencies quoted Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov, stating that Moscow and Kyiv were engaged in “complex contacts” to develop a unified text for a peace and ceasefire memorandum.
“There are no deadlines, and there cannot be any. It is clear that everyone wants to do this as quickly as possible, but, of course, the devil is in the details,” he said.
After speaking with Trump, Zelensky suggested that Kyiv and its partners might seek a high-level meeting involving Ukraine, Russia, the United States, European Union countries, and Britain as part of efforts to end the war.
“Ukraine is ready for direct negotiations with Russia in any format that brings results,” Zelenskiy said on X.
Nanji is an investigative journalist with the ICIR. She has years of experience in reporting and broadcasting human angle stories, gender inequalities, minority stories, and human rights issues.