President Donald Trump announced he will speak to Russian President Vladimir Putin over the phone Monday to discuss the war in Ukraine.
After neither Trump nor Putin went to Turkey earlier this week for peace talks to end the war between Russia and Ukraine, Trump announced the pair will discuss the “stopping the ‘bloodbath’” in a call on Monday. Trump made the announcement in a post on Truth Social Saturday morning, also saying he would speak with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and members of NATO.
“I WILL BE SPEAKING, BY TELEPHONE, TO PRESIDENT VLADIMIR PUTIN OF RUSSIA ON MONDAY, AT 10:00 A.M. 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,” Trump posted.
“I WILL THEN BE SPEAKING TO PRESIDENT ZELENSKYY OF UKRAINE AND THEN, WITH PRESIDENT ZELENSKYY, 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. GOD BLESS US ALL!!!” he added.
The last known discussion directly between Trump and Zelensky was at Pope Francis’s funeral in Vatican City in April, with Trump taking a more critical tone toward Russia in recent weeks after being critical of Ukraine for the preceding months.
While public discussions of peace talks between Russia and Ukraine have ramped up in the months since Trump returned to office, little tangible progress has been made. Both Russia and Ukraine have continued to fight, with a Russian drone strike killing nine people in the Sumy region of Ukraine on Saturday.
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Despite showing frustration with Putin at times in recent weeks, he has remained optimistic that the Russian president wants to end the war — which began when his country invaded Ukraine in February 2022.
“I think Putin is tired of this whole thing, and he’s not looking good, and he wants to look good,” Trump said on Fox News‘s Special Report on Friday. “Don’t forget, this was supposed to end in one week. And if he didn’t get stuck in the mud with his army tanks all over the place, he would have been in Kyiv in about five hours.”