President Donald Trump said he will speak with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday about Kiev’s territorial concessions and ending the Ukrainian war with control of the nuclear power plant in Zaporidia.
“We want to see if we can end that war,” the US president told Air Force 1 reporters on Sunday during a flight from Florida to the Washington, DC area. “We probably can’t do it, but I think we have a very good opportunity.
“I’m going to talk to President Putin on Tuesday. There was a lot of work done over the weekend.”
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov confirmed Putin would talk to Trump on Monday on a phone call but declined to comment on Trump’s comments about land concessions and power plants.
“Yes, this is certainly true,” he said at a news briefing. “That kind of conversation is being prepared on Tuesday.”
Trump is trying to win Putin’s support for the 30-day ceasefire that Ukraine accepted last week as both sides continued to trade heavy air attacks over the weekend, moving closer to kicking out Ukrainian troops from footme months ago in Kursk’s western Russian border region.
Asked about which concessions are being considered in the ceasefire negotiations, Trump said: I’ll talk about the power plant. …We’re already splitting certain assets and talking about it. ”
Trump did not provide details, but most likely refers to the Russian-occupied Zaporidia nuclear facility in Ukraine, Europe’s largest nuclear power plant. Russia and Ukraine are denounced against each other for attacks that risked accidents at factories.
A report from Moscow, Dosa Jabari of Al Jazeera said that one of the main topics of the discussion is actually expected to be the nuclear power plant in Zaporidia.
“It is Europe’s largest nuclear facility and was placed under Russian control in the early part of the conflict in March 2022. Since then, it has been closed, but under the control of the Russian military and the Russian state’s nuclear energy agency, Rosatom,” she said.
“There is also a proposed temporary ceasefire. Russia argues that such agreements should include security guarantees on its part, meaning that Ukraine does not want to use the opportunity to repeatedly, reorganize and reboot the conflict,” she added.
French President Emmanuel Macron said Monday that Trump has committed to the conditions Russia must meet for a 30-day ceasefire.
Writing in the X post, Macron said it was up to Russia to prove that it really wanted peace and he once again spoke with Ukrainian President Voldimir Zelenki on the issue.
The Kremlin said Friday that Putin had sent a message to Trump through Steve Witkov, a US envoy who held talks in Moscow and expressed “cautious optimism” that deals could be reached to end the three-year conflict.
In separate appearances on Sunday’s TV show in the US, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Trump’s national security adviser Mike Waltz emphasized that there are still challenges to be resolved before Russia agrees to a final resolution of the war.
Zelensky said Friday that it is likely that Kiev will end the Russian war after accepting US proposals for a 30-day interim ceasefire.
However, Zelensky consistently states that its sovereignty cannot be negotiated and that Russia must abandon the territory it seized. Russia seized the Crimea in 2014 and now controls some of the four regions of Ukraine since its invasion of the country in 2022.
Putin said his actions in Ukraine were aimed at protecting Russia’s security from what he threw from the aggressive and hostile expansion of the West, particularly the eastward direction of NATO. Ukraine and its western partners said Russia was robbing the attack war and imperial style lands.
Moscow called for Ukraine to drop NATO ambitions, continue to control all Ukrainian territory seized by Russia, and limit the size of the Ukrainian army. They also hope to ease Western sanctions and ease the presidential election in Ukraine. This said Kiev was premature while martial law was in force.
Kaja Karas, the European Union’s foreign policy director, said on Monday that the terms Russia requested to agree to a ceasefire showed Moscow really didn’t want peace.
British Prime Minister Kiel Starmer said on Saturday that non-US western allies are increasing their preparations to support Ukraine if the ceasefire between Russia and Russia is stopped in order to solidify their “robust plans” next week.
Both Britain and France say they are willing to send peacekeepers to monitor the Ukraine ceasefire.
Canadian new Prime Minister Mark Carney, who met French counterpart, President Emmanuel Macron on Monday in Paris, has also pledged to support Ukraine’s sovereignty.
At the frontline, Ukrainian forces launched a drone attack on southern Russia overnight, blew fires at oil refineries, local authorities said Monday that Moscow had launched a barrage of nearly 200 drones against Ukraine.
Astrakan Governor Igor Babshkin said staff at the “fuel and energy” complex evacuated before the attack, causing a huge flame.
“One person was injured during the attack. The victim is currently being taken to hospital,” Babshkin wrote on social media.
The latest bombardment was criticised by Ukraine for refusing to accept the US proposed ceasefire without conditions for Russia.
Moscow has also launched its own barrage of 174 drones in Ukraine. There, air defense units, including Iran-designed Sharp drones, fired down the 90, the Air Force said.
Around 500 people in southern Ukraine, in the southern part of Odesa, lost power due to the attack, and one person was injured, Gov. Oleg Kiper added that several buildings, including the kindergarten, were damaged.
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