Summary
- Trump sees a 'good chance' to end the war in Ukraine.
- On Tuesday, Trump will discuss the ceasefire proposal with Putin. Kremlin confirms Putin to speak with Trump by phone.
- Ukraine supports a 30-day ceasefire proposal.
- Russia demands Ukraine's neutrality, exclusion from NATO
U.S. President Donald Trump said he would speak to Russia's Vladimir Putin
on Tuesday about ending the Ukraine war, with territorial concessions by Kyiv
and control of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant likely to feature
prominently in the talks.
During a flight from Florida to the Washington, D.C., area, Trump told
reporters on Air Force One, "We want to see if we can bring that war to an
end." "Maybe we can, maybe we can't, but I think we have a very good
chance.
"I'll be speaking to President Putin on Tuesday. Over the weekend, a
great deal of work was completed." As both sides continued to exchange
heavy aerial strikes early on Monday and Russia moved closer to ejecting
Ukrainian forces from their months-old foothold in the western Russian region
of Kursk, Trump is attempting to win Putin's support for a proposal for a
30-day ceasefire that Ukraine accepted last week. Trump responded, "We'll
be talking about land," when asked what concessions were being considered
in ceasefire negotiations. Power plants will be our topic... We're already
talking about that, dividing up certain assets."
Trump didn't go into specifics, but he was likely referring to
Europe's largest nuclear plant, the Zaporizhzhia facility in Ukraine, which is
owned by Russia. Ukraine and Russia have both claimed that their respective
actions put the plant at risk of an accident. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry
Peskov confirmed on Monday that Putin would speak with Trump by phone but
declined to comment on Trump's remarks about land and power plants.
The Kremlin said on Friday that Putin had sent Trump a message about his
ceasefire plan via U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff, who held talks in Moscow,
expressing "cautious optimism" that a deal could be reached to end
the three-year conflict.
In separate appearances on Sunday television shows in the United States,
Witkoff, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and Trump's National Security Adviser,
Mike Waltz, stressed that before Russia agrees to a ceasefire—let alone a final
peaceful resolution to the conflict—there are still obstacles to overcome.
Asked on ABC whether the U.S. would accept a peace deal in which Russia was
allowed to keep Ukrainian territory that it has seized, Waltz replied, "We
have to ask ourselves, is it in our national interest? Is it attainable? Are we
going to drive every Russian off of every inch of Ukrainian soil?"
"We can talk about what is right or wrong but also have to talk about
the reality of the situation on the ground," he said, adding that the
alternative to finding compromises on land and other issues was "endless
warfare" and even World War Three.
Volodymyr Zelenskiy, the president of Ukraine, has stated that Kyiv's
acceptance of the U.S. proposal for a 30-day interim ceasefire offers a good
chance of bringing an end to the conflict. However, Zelenskiy has consistently
said the sovereignty of his country is not negotiable and that Russia must
surrender the territory it has seized. Russia seized the Crimean Peninsula in
2014 and now controls most of the four eastern Ukrainian regions since it invaded
the country in 2022.
Zelenskiy has not responded publicly to Waltz's remarks.
In remarks published on Monday that made no mention of the ceasefire
proposal, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko told Russian media
outlet Izvestia that Russia will seek "ironclad" guarantees in any
peace deal that NATO nations will exclude Kyiv from membership and that Ukraine
will remain neutral. "We will demand that ironclad security guarantees
become part of this agreement," Izvestia cited Grushko as saying.
Putin says his actions in Ukraine are aimed at protecting Russia's national
security against what he casts as an aggressive and hostile West, in particular
NATO's eastward expansion. According to Ukraine and its Western partners,
Russia is engaging in an imperial-style land grab and unprovoked war of
aggression. Moscow has demanded that Ukraine drop its NATO ambitions, that
Russia keep control of all Ukrainian territory seized, and that the size of the
Ukrainian army be limited. It also wants Western sanctions eased and a
presidential election in Ukraine, which Kyiv says is premature while martial
law is in force.
The European Union's foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas, said on Monday that
the conditions demanded by Russia to agree to a ceasefire showed that Moscow does
not really want peace.
Elina Valtonen, Finland's Foreign Minister, stated that Russia, not Ukraine,
should be responsible for making concessions as the invading nation
"because otherwise you would be compromising international law."
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said on Monday that "a significant
number" of nations—including Britain and France—were willing to send
peacekeeping troops to Ukraine in the event of a peace deal with Russia.
Defence chiefs will meet this week to firm up plans.
Russia has ruled out peacekeepers until the war has ended.
"If they appear there, it means that they are deployed in the conflict
zone with all the consequences for these contingents as parties to the
conflict," Russia's Grushko said.
"We can talk about unarmed observers, a civilian mission that would
monitor the implementation of individual aspects of this agreement, or
guarantee mechanisms. In the meantime, it's just hot air."
