Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin spoke by phone on Monday to discuss “stopping the bloodbath” in Ukraine and trade, according to the US president.
The White House confirmed that the call was underway around 4pm UK time, but details of the discussion have not yet been released.
Trump is under pressure to secure progress in peace talks after pledging to resolve the conflict on “day one” of his second term.
He has brokered talks between Ukraine and Russia since re-entering the White House but has so far failed to bring about any lasting progress.
Trump spoke with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky before his call with Putin, according to CNN. He was also due to speak with other Nato leaders.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky (R) meeting with US President Donald Trump (L) on the sidelines of Pope Francis’s funeral last weekend (Photo: Handout / UKRAINIAN FOREIGN MINISTRY / AFP)Putin took the call in a music school in the southern Russian resort city of Sochi, Russian state TV reported.
Shortly before the call, US Vice President JD Vance said that peace talks had hit an “impasse” because Putin did not have a “strategy” for ending the war.
“I think, honestly, that President Putin, he doesn’t quite know how to get out of the war,” Vance said.
“He’s got a million men under arms. He’s re-engineered his entire economy… I’m not sure that Vladimir Putin has a strategy for how to unwind the war.”
It comes after representatives Russia and Ukraine held their first direct talks in Turkey on Friday, though neither Putin nor Trump attended.
The two sides agreed after large-scale prisoner exchange but appeared not to make progress on ending the war.
Russia reportedly demanded further territory from Ukraine during the talks.
In the run up to the meeting, Ukraine had pushed for a 30-day ceasefire but the Kremlin has rejected this.
Hours after the talks concluded, a Russian attack hit a bus carrying civilians in Ukraine’s Sumy region, killing at least nine people and injuring four, according to local authorities.
Ukrainian (left) and Russian (right) delegations attend talks at the Dolmabache palace, in Istanbul, Turkey, on Friday 16 May 2025. (Photo: Ramil Sitdikov, Sputnik Pool Photo via AP)Russia is widely considered to be stalling talks, with little incentive to bring the conflict to a close as it dominates on the battlefield.
It has also set out a series of maximalist demands in peace talks, seeking not only to control of large swathes of territory but also to ensure Ukraine’s military teeth are removed; reducing the size of its army, banning it from joining Nato and preventing it from receiving military support from allies.
A 30 hour Easter ceasefire, also brokered by Trump, broke down after Russia was accused of carrying out hundreds of shellings and drone attacks.
Trump unsuccessfully brokering talks since reelection
Trump has been attempting to broker a ceasefire in Ukraine since returning to the White House in February, but the talks have largely failed to bear fruit except for a ceasefire in the Black Sea which is considered largely inconsequential to the course of the war.
Throughout the negotiations, Trump has caused alarm among Nato allies with his apparent sympathy towards Putin and hostility to Ukraine, blaming Ukraine for starting the war, temporarily withholding intelligence from Kyiv and threatening to pull military support, as well as hinting that he would withdraw from the Nato military alliance altogether.
But his relationship with Putin appeared to have cooled in recent weeks, with Trump making a series of public criticisms as he grew frustrated at the Kremlin’s unwillingness to end the war.
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