Kremlin confirms Putin, Trump to speak on Tuesday, US time

Donald Trump has announced he will speak about the war in Ukraine on Tuesday and given insight into what to expect. Watch the video.

US President Donald Trump said he plans to speak to Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday, Washington time (AEST Wednesday) and discuss ending the war in Ukraine, after positive talks between US and Russian officials in Moscow.

“That is indeed the case. There is such a conversation being prepared for Tuesday,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters including AFP, without commenting on what the two leaders would discuss.

Mr Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff travelled to Moscow last week to present the details of a joint US-Ukrainian ceasefire plan that envisages a 30-day pause in hostilities.

“We want to see if we can bring that war to an end,” Mr Trump told reporters on Air Force One during a late flight back to the Washington DC area from Florida.

“Maybe we can, maybe we can’t, but I think we have a very good chance.

“I’ll be speaking to President Putin on Tuesday. A lot of work’s been done over the weekend.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin at the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia, Monday, March 17, 2025. Picture: Yury Kochetkov/Pool Photo via AP

WHAT ARE THE SERIOUS QUESTIONS?

President Trump is trying to win Vladimir Putin’s support for a 30-day ceasefire proposal that Ukraine accepted last week, as both sides continued the conflict through the weekend and Russia made advances in expelling Ukrainian forces from the western Russian region of Kursk.

In addition to pausing the conflict and working toward peace, Mr Trump said the two would discuss “land” and power plants: an apparent reference to the Moscow-controlled Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant in south Ukraine.

In separate appearances in US media over the weekend, Mr Witkoff, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and US National Security adviser, Mike Waltz mentioned challenges had to be worked out before Russia agreed to a ceasefire, echoing Mr Putin’s comments that there were “serious questions” about how a ceasefire would be implemented that he wanted to discuss with Mr Trump.

Asked by ABC whether the US would accept a peace deal in which Russia was allowed to keep territory in eastern Ukraine that it has seized, Mr Waltz said somewhat rhetorically, “Are we going to drive every Russian off of every inch of Ukrainian soil?”

Russia has in the past two weeks mounted a major counter offensive against Ukrainian troops in its Kursk region.

Moscow last week retook the main town that Ukraine seized in its summer 2024 incursion, Sudzha, and swathes of areas around it.

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky has maintained that his country must remain independent Russia must surrender the territory it seized.

Russia seized the Crimea peninsula in 2014 and now controls most of four eastern Ukrainian regions since it invaded the country in 2022.

Meanwhile, Mr Rubio told CBS a final peace deal would “involve a lot of hard work, concessions from both Russia and Ukraine,” and that it would be difficult to even begin those negotiations “as long as they’re shooting at each other.”

WHAT WILL RUSSIA DEMAND?

Russia will seek “iron-clad” guarantees in any peace deal that NATO nations exclude Kyiv from membership and that Ukraine will remain neutral, a Russian deputy foreign minister said.

Speaking with Russian media, Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko said that any long-lasting peace treaty on Ukraine must meet Moscow’s demands.

“We will demand that iron-clad security guarantees become part of this agreement,” he said.

“Part of these guarantees should be the neutral status of Ukraine, the refusal of NATO countries to accept it into the alliance.”

Mr Putin has said his military incursion into Ukraine was triggered by NATO’s expansion, which he saw as a threat to Russian security.

He has demanded that Ukraine drop its bid to join NATO, that it reduce the size of its military, and that Russia hold onto the Ukrainian territory it has won on the conflict.

He also wants Western sanctions on Russia eased.

US President Donald Trump has said that dealing with Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky is harder than dealing with Russia. Picture: AFP

BALL IN RUSSIA’S COURT

President Trump, who has raised concerns among international leaders by contemplating closer ties with Moscow, famously clashed with an “ungrateful” Mr Zelensky in the Oval office and said Ukraine was more difficult to work with than Russia.

Mr Zelensky backtracked and apologised to the United States and his rapid acceptance of a proposed ceasefire has now put the ball in Russia’s court.

Europe and Britain expressed their unwavering support for Ukraine, and reiterated that any ceasefire must be negotiated with Ukraine involved in talks.

CONSEQUENCES FOR PEACEKEEPING FORCES

Britain and France both have said that they are willing to send a peacekeeping force to monitor any ceasefire in Ukraine.

Australia is also considering joining a “coalition of the willing” in the event of a ceasefire deal.

Russia has ruled out peacekeepers until the war has ended, and has issued subtle threats.

“It does not matter under what label NATO contingents were to be deployed on Ukrainian territory: be it the European Union, NATO, or in a national capacity,” Mr Grushko said.

“If they appear there, it means that they are deployed in the conflict zone with all the consequences for these contingents as parties to the conflict,” he said.

Russia’s representative to NATO Alexander Grushko said that peacekeeping forces will be entering a conflict zone even in the event of a ceasefire between Ukraine and Russia. Picture: AFP

“We can talk about unarmed observers, a civilian mission that would monitor the implementation of individual aspects of this agreement, or guarantee mechanisms. In the meantime, it’s just hot air.”

French President Emmanuel Macron said in remarks published on Sunday that the stationing of peacekeeping troops in Ukraine is a question for Kyiv to decide and not Moscow.

— With Post wires

Originally published as Kremlin confirms Putin, Trump to speak on Tuesday, US time