Trump says Putin agrees to start conversations to end the war in Ukraine

The president of the United States, Donald Trump, said he had a “long and highly productive” phone call with Vladimir Putin on Wednesday in which the leaders agreed to begin negotiations to end the war in Ukraine.

In a publication about his real social platform, Trump said that he and the Russian president had “agreed that our respective teams begin the negotiations immediately” and invited each other to visit their respective capitals.

Later, the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky, said he had also talked to Trump about a “reliable and lasting peace.”

The calls with both sides at war came when Trump and his Secretary of Defense said that Ukraine was unlikely to join NATO, which will come as a bitter disappointment for kyiv.

Zelensky said he would meet with Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio during a defense summit in Ukraine that will take place in Munich on Friday.

Trump wrote on social networks: “It’s time to stop this ridiculous war, where there has been a massive and totally unnecessary death.

He did not establish a date for a face -to -face meeting with Putin, but then he told the White House journalists: “We will meet in Saudi Arabia.”

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Putin supported Trump’s idea that the time had come to work together.

The phone call between Putin and Trump lasted almost an hour and a half, during which the Russian president extended an invitation to visit Moscow, Peskov said.

Trump also told the White House journalists that Ukraine was unlikely to return to his borders prior to 2014, but in response to a BBC question he said that “part of that land will return.”

The president said he agreed with his Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, who told an NATO summit on Thursday that there was no probability that Ukraine joined the military alliance.

“I think that is probably true,” Trump said.

Hegesh’s speech will have been a body blow for Kyiv.

While it has long been known that the US news administration was less comprehensive than its predecessor of Ukraine, each statement of Hegesh has probably only pleased Moscow.

There was denial of NATO membership, an opinion that Ukraine cannot win and ambiguity on how a frozen front line would be monitored in the future, all of which joined a tangible return for the 11 years of aggression of Russia towards Ukraine.

Zelensky has repeatedly argued that “there can be no conversations in Ukraine without Ukraine”, but Trump’s phone call -Putin took place in his absence.

Zelensky said his call with Trump had been a “significant conversation” about a variety of issues, and that the United States Secretary of the United States had also been met, Scott Besent, who is visiting Kiev.

“No one wants peace more than Ukraine. Together with the United States, we are drawing our next steps to stop Russian aggression and guarantee lasting and reliable peace,” Zelensky wrote. “

The Ukrainian leader added: “We agreed to maintain more contact and plan the next meetings.”

The call between American and Ukrainian leaders lasted an hour, according to the AFP news agency.

In An interview with The Guardian Published on Tuesday, Zelensky suggested that the territory controlled by Russia in Ukraine could be changed to the Ukrainian territory in the Kursk region of Russia as part of a peace agreement.

He also insisted that the United States, and not only European countries, would need to be part of any security package for their country.

“Security guarantees without the United States are not real security guarantees,” he said.

Russia attached the Black Sea Peninsula of Crimea from Ukraine in March 2014 and then supported the pro-ruse separatists in an armed insurgency against kyiv’s forces in eastern Ukraine.

After years of confrontations and tensions between the two countries, the conflict broke out in the total war when Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022.

Moscow’s attempts to take control of the capital were frustrated, but the Russian forces have taken around a fifth of the territory of Ukraine in the east and the south, and have carried out air attacks throughout the country.

Ukraine has retaliates with drones strikes and an offensive in the Kursk region of Russia.

Accurate victims counts are difficult to obtain due to the secret of Russian and Ukrainian governments, but it is estimated that hundreds of thousands of troops and civilians have been killed or injured.