“I will address Russian President Vladimir Putin by phone,” Trump wrote in a post about the Truth Society. “The theme of the phone will be to stop the ‘Bloodbath’ and trade that kills more than 5,000 Russian and Ukrainian soldiers a week.”
The president added that the dialogue with Putin would follow a separate appeal with Zelenskyy, after which he plans to talk to the Ukrainian leader with “the various members of NATO”.
“Hopefully this will be a productive day, there will be a ceasefire, and this very violent war, a war that will never happen will end,” Trump wrote. “God bless us all!”
The scheduled negotiations mark a potential diplomatic intervention in the U.S. president repeatedly criticized the war and called for a negotiating solution. His post does not provide other details about the nature of the trade discussion or what specific suggestions he intends to make on a phone call with Russian and Ukrainian leaders.
The Kremlin and the Ukrainian government have not yet publicly confirmed the plan. The war in Ukraine, now in its third year, caused serious casualties on both sides and deepened geopolitical tensions between Russia and the West.
