Trump to speak to Zelensky and Putin

Donald Trump has said he will speak with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday to discuss “stopping the bloodbath” in Ukraine, days after the first face-to-face talks between Kyiv and Moscow in more than three years.

“Hopefully it will be a productive day,” Trump said on his Truth Social platform, announcing the phone call with his Russian counterpart on Monday morning.

“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 added.

The US President said he would also speak with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and various members of the Nato alliance after the phone call with Putin.

Trump, who has been pressuring Putin and Zelensky to agree to a ceasefire, had earlier in the week dented hopes of a major breakthrough in the first direct meeting between Russia and Ukraine since the initial 2022 outbreak of the war.

Winding up his tour of the Middle East ahead of Ukraine and Russia’s trilateral talks in Turkey, the US President warned that there would be no movement on ceasefire talks until he and Putin met.

Trump, in an interview with Fox News, said he thought he could make “a deal” with Putin but threatened to impose sanctions on Russia if “we’re not going to make a deal.”

The Kremlin subsequently responded on Friday that a Putin-Trump meeting was essential to make progress.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov also spoke with each other on Saturday, their offices announced, with Rubio emphasising Trump’s call for an immediate ceasefire.

Failed talks on Friday

Trump’s interjection comes after Kyiv and Moscow failed to agree to a ceasefire at their first direct talks in more than three years.

The Russian delegation in Istanbul on Friday, which did not include Putin, presented conditions that Ukraine described as “non-starters”. A source told Reuters that Moscow was demanding Kyiv pull its troops out of all Ukrainian regions claimed by Moscow before they would agree to a ceasefire.

Russia, having shown little inclination to make concessions in the conflict, expressed satisfaction with the meeting and said it was ready to continue contacts.

The talks in an Istanbul palace lasted less than two hours. Both countries said they had agreed to trade 1,000 prisoners of war each soon in what would be the biggest such exchange yet.

As soon as the talks ended Zelensky announced on X that he had spoken by phone with Trump and the leaders of France, Germany and Poland.

“Ukraine is ready to take the fastest possible steps to bring real peace, and it is important that the world holds a strong stance,” Zelensky said. He called for “tough sanctions” if Russia rejects a full and unconditional ceasefire.

Russia, which is slowly but steadily advancing on the battlefield and is worried that Ukraine will use such a pause to regroup and re-arm, has said it needs to nail down the terms of a ceasefire before signing up to one.

“We have agreed that each side will present its vision of a possible future ceasefire and spell it out in detail,” Russia’s lead negotiator, Vladimir Medinsky, told reporters after the meeting. “After such a vision has been presented, we believe it would be appropriate, as also agreed, to continue our negotiations.”

The Ukrainian delegation leader, Defence Minister Umerov, said the next step should be a meeting at the leaders’ level.

Strikes continue

A Russian drone hit a bus evacuating civilians from a front-line area in Ukraine’s northeastern Sumy region on Saturday, killing nine people, Ukrainian officials said.

Seven people were also injured, three of them seriously, in the attack in Bilopillia, a town around 10km (6 miles) from Russia’s border, according to local Governor Oleh Hryhorov and Ukraine’s national police.

Moscow, like Kyiv, does not usually comment on such attacks on opposition territory.

Zelensky described the attack as “deliberate killing of civilians,” and said “Russians could scarcely not realise what kind of vehicle they were hitting.”

He lamented the missed opportunity from peace talks on Friday, saying that “Ukraine has long proposed this – a full and unconditional ceasefire in order to save lives.”

“Russia only retains the ability to continue killing,” Zelensky added.

British Foreign Secretary David Lammy said he was “appalled” by the attack. “If Putin is serious about peace, Russia must agree to a full and immediate ceasefire, as Ukraine has done,” he wrote on X.

This is breaking news and is being updated.