S President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin have held a more than two-hour telephone conversation about the war in Ukraine. The White House said they agreed to halt attacks on Ukraine’s energy and infrastructure for 30 days. The agreement marks the first step in peacemaking, but it is not yet clear whether Ukraine will support the plan.
Putin has made it a condition for peace talks that Ukraine must completely stop foreign military aid, while Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has dismissed Putin’s proposal as an attempt to “just talk.” European nations have been concerned after Trump suggested he was in talks with Russia about “some asset sharing.”
After the talks, Trump said on social media that the talks were “at a critical stage,” but noted that many issues still remained to be resolved. Meanwhile, Putin claimed that his troops were continuing to advance into Ukrainian territory and insisted that NATO troops would not be deployed in Ukraine under any circumstances.
US–Ukraine split
There has been a complete shift in US policy towards Ukraine since Trump’s return to the White House. US President Trump stunned the world last month by announcing he had spoken to Putin, breaking Western efforts to isolate the Russian president as his forces continued their invasion of Ukraine.
He has since spoken to the Russian president “many times.” He has repeatedly expressed his admiration for Putin in the past, though no talks have been formally announced. Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff, met with Putin for three hours in Moscow last Thursday to outline a joint ceasefire plan, which envisions a 30-day pause in the fighting. But as Washington’s relations with Moscow have improved, its relationship with Ukraine has become increasingly complicated.
Trump had a row with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in the Oval Office on February 28. The row led to the United States temporarily suspending billions of dollars in military aid to Kiev. Zelensky was later forced to agree to both a ceasefire plan and a deal giving the United States preferential access to Ukraine’s rare mineral deposits.
