(Reuters)
MOSCOW, May 19 – U.S. President Donald Trump is set to speak to Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday about peace in Ukraine as European leaders demanded that the Kremlin accept an immediate ceasefire to halt the region’s deadliest conflict since World War Two.
Putin sent thousands of troops into Ukraine in February 2022, triggering the gravest confrontation between Russia and the West since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis.
Trump, who says he wants to be remembered as a peacemaker, has repeatedly called for an end to the “bloodbath” of Ukraine, which his administration casts as a proxy war between the United States and Russia.
Under pressure from Trump, delegates from the warring countries met last week in Istanbul for the first time since March 2022, after Putin proposed direct talks and Europeans and Ukraine demanded an immediate ceasefire.
“The subjects of the call will be stopping the ‘bloodbath’ that is killing, on average, more than 5,000 Russian and Ukrainian soldiers a week, and trade,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social website.
“Hopefully it will be a productive day, a ceasefire will take place, and this very violent war, a war that should have never happened, will end.”
Trump, who said that progress on peace was unlikely until he and Putin get together, said he would speak to Putin at 10 a.m. Eastern Time (1400 GMT) on Monday. The Kremlin said preparations for a call were underway.
Trump, whose administration has made clear that Russia could face additional sanctions if it does not take peace talks seriously, said he would also speak to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and various members of NATO.
Putin, whose forces control a fifth of Ukraine and are advancing, has stood firm on his conditions for ending the war, despite public and private pressure from Trump and repeated warnings from European powers.
On Sunday, Russia launched its largest drone attack on Ukraine since the start of the war.
