President Donald Trump said that he and Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed during their phone conversation Tuesday on an “immediate” ceasefire on all energy and infrastructure in Ukraine, though it was not immediately clear how Kyiv would respond.
Trump wrote on Truth Social said he and Putin agreed to the ceasefire “with an understanding that we will be working quickly to have a Complete Ceasefire and, ultimately, an END to this very horrible War between Russia and Ukraine.”
The White House had said in an official readout of their conversation that the two leaders agreed that the process to reach a peace agreement between Russia and Ukraine would begin with an energy infrastructure ceasefire.
Trump and Putin agreed that the movement to peace “will begin with an energy and infrastructure ceasefire, as well as technical negotiations on implementation of a maritime ceasefire in the Black Sea, full ceasefire and permanent peace. These negotiations will begin immediately in the Middle East,” the White House said.
The Kremlin told the Russian state outlet TASS that Putin has agreed to halt strikes on energy infrastructure for 30 days. The Kremlin also said that the key condition to prevent an escalation in its war in Ukraine would be the suspension of foreign military aid and foreign intelligence to the Ukrainian government.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has warned that he doesn’t trust Putin to stick to a ceasefire because Russia hasn’t abided by previous agreements with Ukraine.
The White House also signaled that the Trump administration wants to improve relations between the U.S. and Russia, saying in the statement: “The two leaders agreed that a future with an improved bilateral relationship between the United States and Russia has huge upside. This includes enormous economic deals and geopolitical stability when peace has been achieved.”
The call began around 10 a.m. ET and lasted at least an hour and a half.
A Kremlin aide later wrote in a post on X that it was “a PERFECT call.” He may have been referring to the infamous phone conversation Trump held with Zelenskyy in 2019 in which Trump asked the Ukrainian president to investigate Hunter Biden and suggested that the U.S. would withhold aid if Zelenskyy didn’t cooperate. Trump later said it was a “perfect call,” though the House, then controlled by Democrats, impeached the president for the first time later that year.
Trump said late Monday that he looked forward to the call with Putin in a post on Truth Social, adding that “many elements of a Final Agreement have been agreed to, but much remains.”
While the White House readout didn’t include specific details of what a permanent ceasefire would entail, the call most likely involved a discussion of what Ukraine will have to give up to achieve a pause after three years of fighting since Putin ordered his troops to invade Russia’s neighbor.
Trump, who has been trying to win Putin’s support for a 30-day ceasefire proposal that Ukraine accepted last week, said late Sunday that discussions with Putin would involve “dividing up certain assets” that included land and power plants.
The president has intimated that the Zaporizhzhia power plant, Europe’s biggest nuclear facility, as well as land — Ukraine controls part of the Russian region of Kursk, while Russia holds several regions of Ukraine will be up for discussion.
