Donald Trump and Putin discuss Ukraine ceasefire: White House confirms hour-long call ‘going well’

US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin have begun their much-anticipated phone call to discuss the Ukraine ceasefire. The Trump-led US government is looking to get Russia's sign-off on the 30-day ceasefire proposal that Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky has already agreed to. The White House confirmed that the hour-long conversation was ‘going well’.

The White House said Tuesday that a phone call between President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin over a potential ceasefire in Ukraine has started and is going “well”.

The call began at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday IST (1400 GMT) and had lasted nearly an hour so far, deputy chief of staff Dan Scavino said on X. “The call is going well and is still in progress,” he added.

Tuesday's call between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin comes after Ukrainian officials last week agreed to the US proposal during talks in Saudi Arabia led by Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

Putin in effect rejected the plan, instead outlining a series of conditions, including a halt to Ukraine’s rearmament and mobilisation, as well as a suspension of western military aid to Kyiv during the 30-day ceasefire.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, however, remains sceptical that Vladimir Putin is ready for peace as Russian forces continue to pound Ukraine.

Donald Trump, before the call with Putin, said he expected to discuss with the Russian President the land and power plants that have been seized during the grinding three-year war.

The Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said on Tuesday that the two leaders would discuss “a large number of issues from the normalisation of our relations and the Ukrainian issue”.

Bloomberg reported on Tuesday that Putin was expected to demand a suspension of all weapons deliveries to Ukraine – including US and European aid – during a ceasefire proposed by Trump.

US-Russia to Talk on ‘Divinding Assets’?

Before the talk, Donald Trump said Russian and US negotiators had already talked about “dividing up certain assets”.

“We’re doing pretty well, I think, with Russia,” Trump said on Sunday, adding that he thought there was a very good chance of reaching a ceasefire.

Kyiv will be alarmed by US President Trump’s hints that the US may put pressure on Ukraine to cede significant territory.

“I think we’ll be talking about land; it’s a lot of land,” he said. “It’s a lot different than it was before the war, as you know. We’ll be talking about land,” Trump said when asked about Ukrainian concessions.

“We’ll be talking about power plants,” apparently referring to the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, the largest nuclear site in Europe.

Donald Trump’s rhetoric on dividing territory has echoes of the 1945 Yalta conference, where Joseph Stalin, Winston Churchill and Franklin Roosevelt divided Europe between the American-aligned West and the Soviet-controlled East.