Trump, Putin To Discuss Ukraine This Week

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Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin and US President Donald Trump are scheduled to meet this week, according to officials who spoke on Sunday as European allies press Moscow to accept a ceasefire.

Following discussions in Saudi Arabia, the United States suggested that the conflict should end. Kyiv agreed to do so this week.

Putin, however, has not provided a clear response, instead citing a number of “serious questions” raised over the proposition.

Steve Witkoff, Trump’s top envoy for the conflict, stated in a televised interview with CNN that he believes “the two presidents will have a really good and positive discussion this week.”

Russian Foreign Ministry officials earlier claimed that Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov was called by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and that the two had discussed “concrete issues of the implementation of agreements” at a US-Russia summit last month in Saudi Arabia.

FILE: On February 28, 2025, US President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky meet in Washington, DC’s Oval Office. At a meeting on February 28 where they were scheduled to sign a deal to discuss sharing Ukraine’s mineral wealth and discuss a peace deal with Russia, Zellensky and Trump publicly clashed in the White House. (Photo by SAUL LOEB/AFP)

Volodymyr Zelensky, a Ukraine citizen, accused the Kremlin of not wanting to end the war on Saturday, warning that Moscow wanted to “improve their situation on the battlefield” first before agreeing to a ceasefire.

The first high-level meeting between the US and Russia since Moscow’s invasion of Russia in February 2022 took place in Riyadh.

Without making any mention of the US-suggested ceasefire, Sergei Lavrov and Marco Rubio “agreed to stay in contact.”

On Saturday, the two “discussed the next steps” regarding Ukraine, according to Tammy Bruce, a spokeswoman for the State Department.

A drone attack that occurred in the Russian village of Sapronovo on March 11, 2025, results in a damaged apartment building in a residential complex. Diffusions of drones were used by Ukraine’s mayor on March 11, 2025 to launch a “massive” overnight attack against Moscow. (Photo by TATYANA MAKEYEVA/AFP)

She added that Rubio and Lavrov “agreed to continue to work toward restoring Russian-American communication.”

The UK hosted a virtual summit on Ukraine shortly after the Lavrov-Rubio call, with Prime Minister Keir Starmer accusing Putin of “dragging his feet” on the ceasefire.

Starmer pleaded for a stop to the “barbaric attacks on Ukraine once and for all” and said, “The ‘yes, but’ from Russia is not good enough.

Kiev reported that Russia had bombarded nine Ukrainian regions with 90 Iranian-made Shahed drones the following day.

Zelensky calls Putin “liar” –

Putin said the initiative would benefit Ukraine in particular, not Russian forces, who he claimed were “advancing” in many areas, in his response to the ceasefire earlier this week.

He referred to the initiative as having “serious questions.”

Russia, which controls large swathes of southern and eastern Ukraine, is the subject of the proposal, which was made at the time of its adoption.

In its Kursk region, where Kyiv wants to hold onto Russian territory as a potential bargaining chip in any upcoming negotiations, it has removed Ukrainian forces from parts of its territory.

Putin called Trump and said he wanted to talk about Moscow’s concerns.

Zelensky claimed on Saturday that Putin was also trying to defame Trump, who has made advances toward Russia, and that Moscow is trying to find a way to stop the conflict.

He claimed that Putin “lied about how a ceasefire is supposedly too complicated.”

One person was killed by a Russian drone strike on the Kharkiv city of Izyum, which Russia deposed at the start of its invasion of Ukraine before being overtaken by Kyiv’s forces, according to Ukraine’s report on Sunday.