ISTANBUL: US President Donald Trump said on Saturday he would speak to the presidents of Russia and Ukraine on Monday following talks between the two sides at which a Ukrainian official said Moscow’s negotiators voiced new demands before a ceasefire could be agreed.
In Moscow, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told Russian news agencies preparations were underway for a conversation between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Trump.
The talks in Turkiye on Friday were the first time the sides had held face-to-face talks since March 2022, weeks after Russia’s full-scale invasion of its smaller neighbor.
A senior Ukrainian official familiar with the talks said Russian negotiators demanded Ukraine pull its troops out of all Ukrainian regions claimed by Moscow before they would agree to a ceasefire.
Trump, writing on Truth Social, said he would speak with Putin to discuss stopping the war at 10 a.m. Eastern (1400 GMT) on Monday.
“THE SUBJECTS OF THE CALL WILL BE, STOPPING THE ‘BLOODBATH’ THAT IS KILLING, ON AVERAGE, MORE THAN 5000 RUSSIAN AND UKRAINIAN SOLDIERS A WEEK, AND TRADE,” he wrote.
He said he would speak afterward with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and various members of NATO.
“Hopefully it will be a productive day, a ceasefire will take place, and this very violent war, a war that should have never happened, will end.”
Trump had offered to travel to Turkiye for the talks while in the Gulf last week if Putin would also attend, but Putin sent a team of negotiators instead.
The president has been pressuring Putin and Zelensky to agree to a ceasefire in the more than three-year-old war.
The Kremlin declined to comment on the terms that Russia had put forward at Friday’s meeting. The talks lasted only one hour and 40 minutes and yielded an agreement to trade 1,000 prisoners of war on each side. The two countries have not specified when that would happen.
Zelensky called on Saturday for stronger sanctions on Moscow after a Russian drone killed nine bus passengers in the Sumy region of northeastern Ukraine. “This was a deliberate killing of civilians,” he said.
“Pressure must be exerted on Russia to stop the killings. Without tougher sanctions, without stronger pressure, Russia will not seek real diplomacy.”
Russia, which denies targeting civilians, said it struck a military target in Sumy. Its defense ministry said Russian troops had captured another settlement in eastern Ukraine.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov spoke by telephone with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and said he welcomed the “positive role” of the United States in helping to secure a resumption of talks between Russia and Ukraine. A Russian foreign ministry statement quoted Lavrov as saying contacts would continue.
Rubio was quoted as telling the CBS news program “Face the Nation” that Lavrov said the Russians were “working on a series of ideas and requirements that they would have in order to move forward with a ceasefire and further negotiations.”
“I think your question is, ‘Are they tapping us along?’” he said in the interview to be broadcast on Sunday. “Well, that’s what we’re trying to find out.”
Rubio, who told reporters earlier in Rome that the Vatican could be a venue to facilitate further Russia-Ukraine dialogue, told CBS it was a “very generous offer that may be taken up on.”
