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President Donald Trump has said Washington and Moscow will begin negotiations “immediately” on ending the war in Ukraine after speaking with Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin.
Wednesday’s call indicated a dramatic turnaround in the US-Russia relationship amid signs Washington will dial back its support for Ukraine after almost three years of war.
Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform that he and Putin had “agreed to work together, very closely”, expressing confidence talks would be “successful” and vowing “no more lives should be lost!” Trump said the two leaders also agreed to visit each other’s nations.
The call, which the Kremlin said lasted nearly 90 minutes, was the first time the US and Russia had spoken at the highest level since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
Global oil prices fell after news of the call, with Brent crude down 2.3 per cent at $75.25 a barrel on Wednesday afternoon in London. The US is among western countries that have imposed sanctions on Russia’s energy sector since Moscow ordered the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Trump spoke to Putin before calling Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Ukraine’s president, in a sign that the US may not want to work with Kyiv or the EU on a common strategy to bring Russia to the negotiating table.
The US also poured cold water on Ukraine’s hopes to secure a pledge to join Nato and restore its borders from before Russia annexed Crimea in 2014.
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An in-person meeting would mark the first US-Russia summit since Joe Biden, Trump’s predecessor, met Putin in Geneva in 2021, as well as the first time either country’s president has visited the other in at least a decade.
Russia has staked out a hardline position ahead of any talks, demanding Nato roll back most of its post-cold war deployments in eastern Europe and insisting Ukraine recognise its annexation of four south-eastern regions, none of which it fully controls.
The Kremlin’s readout of the call was more restrained than Trump’s and did not suggest Russia was prepared to soften its stance.
Dmitry Peskov, Putin’s spokesman, said the Russian president agreed with Trump that “the time has come for our countries to work together” and that a “long-term solution can be achieved through peace negotiations”, but warned it was “essential to settle the reasons for the conflict”.
Peskov said Putin had invited Trump to Moscow and was prepared to meet with US officials to discuss “issues of mutual interest”. The two leaders also discussed bilateral economic co-operation and the Iranian nuclear programme, Peskov told reporters.
Trump said he had directed secretary of state Marco Rubio, CIA director John Ratcliffe, national security adviser Mike Waltz and special envoy Steve Witkoff to head the US negotiating team. Trump’s list did not include his Ukraine envoy, Keith Kellogg.
Zelenskyy said in a statement following his call with Trump that the two had a “long conversation about the possibilities of achieving peace”.
Zelenskyy said Trump had informed him “of the details of his conversation with Putin”. He said they also discussed “technological capabilities, including drones and other modern production”.
A senior Ukrainian official said Zelenskyy also told Trump about the situation on the battlefield and the deployment of North Korean troops to fight alongside Russian forces in the Kursk region.
Trump later wrote on Truth Social that the call with Zelenskyy “went very well”.
But the announcement from Trump confirms fears in Kyiv and Europe that the US would not involve the EU or major European capitals in the negotiations over Ukraine’s future and has shifted to a more conciliatory position towards Moscow.
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Earlier on Wednesday, defence secretary Pete Hegseth said a durable peace for Ukraine “must include robust security guarantees” to ensure war would not begin again but that Washington “does not believe that Nato membership for Ukraine is a realistic outcome”.
A return to Ukraine’s pre-2014 borders was also an “unrealistic objective”, Hegseth said.
Hegseth told his Nato allies that Washington believed “capable European and non-European troops” should be deployed in post-conflict Ukraine to ensure peace, but not US ones, and that any Nato soldiers there would not be covered by the alliance’s mutual defence clause.
EU diplomats had unsuccessfully sought to lobby the Trump administration for a role in the talks, people involved in the efforts told the FT, stressing that Ukraine’s post-conflict state was a critical part of Europe’s security architecture.
Instead, EU capitals believe they will be pressured to pay for whatever deal is agreed in money, arms and peacekeeping troops on the ground.
“How to implement any deal without Europe?” said one western official in response to Trump’s statement. “Cash and boots would be European.”
Cartography by Steven Bernard
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