Russian President Vladimir Putin and his U.S. counterpart will chat this week about a potential ceasefire in Ukraine, the Kremlin confirmed Monday, per the Associated Press.
The news comes a day after President Donald Trump told reporters that progress was being made on a 30-day cessation in hostilities, despite Putin saying that any such proposal should not merely pause the conflict but “eliminate the original causes of this crisis.” Russia invaded Ukraine in Feb. 2022 with a goal of regime change, rejecting its neighbor’s right to seek economic and military alliances with rival powers.
“We’re doing pretty well, I think, with Russia. We’ll see if we have something to announce maybe by Tuesday, I’ll be speaking to President Putin on Tuesday,” Trump told reporters on Sunday.
Trump, who has insisted that Ukraine cede the rights to its mineral wealth as compensation for U.S. military assistance, said the call with Putin would also include discussion of Ukraine’s resources.
“We’ll be talking about land, we’ll be talking about power plants, that’s a big question,” he said. “But I think we have a lot of it already discussed, very much, by both sides, Ukraine and Russia. We’re already talking about that — dividing up certain assets.”
