US President Donald Trump said he will speak with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday in an effort to stop the ongoing war with Ukraine. According to Trump’s post on Truth Social, the call is scheduled for 10:00 AM EDT (14:00 GMT). After that he will speak with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and leaders of NATO countries on the same day.

Trump said, “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.”

This follows closely on the heels of Russian and Ukrainian officials met in Istanbul for the first face-to-face negotiations in three years. Although the negotiations did not achieve any major breakthrough, both sides came to an agreement on a prisoner exchange. Trump had signalled that he would sit down with the parties in Turkey if Putin was also present, but the Russian leader declined the invitation.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov confirmed that preparations for a phone call between Putin and Trump were underway. “The conversation is in the works,” Peskov told Russian news agency Tass.

Trump has repeatedly stated that only direct discussions between him and Putin could lead to any progress in ending the war.

IS CEASEFIRE POSSIBLE?

The US and European leaders have been calling for Russia to sign a 30-day truce. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov also met on Saturday to push Moscow to accept American-mediated interventions.

However, violence on the ground has continued. After the Istanbul negotiations, a Russian drone attack struck a passenger bus in Ukraine’s Sumy region and killed nine people. President Zelenskyy denounced the attack, calling it “a deliberate killing of civilians.”

In retaliation, he called for stronger international sanctions on Moscow. Russian state media said its troops had attacked a “military staging area” in the area but had no particular statement on the bus attack.

Despite the tensions, Russian officials are happy with the Istanbul meeting. Vladimir Medinsky, head of the Russian delegation and an aide to Putin, said that they were ready to continue negotiations.

However, Ukrainian officials said that Moscow made new demands during the talks that Kyiv could not accept. These included the demand for Ukrainian forces to retreat from key portions of their own land in return for a ceasefire. Ukraine stands firm on its demand for a full and unconditional ceasefire.