By Guy Faulconbridge, Steve Holland and Max Hunder
MOSCOW/WASHINGTON/KYIV (Reuters) -U.S. President Donald Trump spoke to Russia’s Vladimir Putin about Ukraine on Monday, after Vice President JD Vance said Washington could walk away from the peace process and conclude that “this is not our war”.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy spoke “for a few minutes” with Trump before the U.S. leader’s call with Putin, a source familiar with the matter said.
Trump, who has promised to bring a swift end to Europe’s deadliest war since World War Two, has repeatedly called for a ceasefire after years in which Washington joined other Western countries in arming Ukraine.
Under pressure from Trump, delegates from the warring countries met last week in Istanbul for the first time since 2022, though they failed to agree to a truce. Kyiv says it is ready for a ceasefire now; Moscow says conditions must be met first.
European leaders have said they want the United States to join them in imposing tough new sanctions on Russia for refusing a ceasefire. The leaders of Britain, France, Germany and Italy spoke to Trump on Sunday ahead of his call with Putin.
Putin was speaking from Russia’s Black Sea resort of Sochi while Trump was in Washington.
Shortly before the call, Vance told reporters that Washington recognised there was “a bit of an impasse here”.
“And I think the president’s going to say to President Putin: ‘Look, are you serious? Are you real about this?'” Vance said as he prepared to depart from Italy.
“I think honestly that President Putin, he doesn’t quite know how to get out of the war,” Vance said.
He said it “takes two to tango. I know the President’s willing to do that, but if Russia is not willing to do that, then we’re eventually just going to say, this is not our war.”
“We’re going to try to end it, but if we can’t end it, we’re eventually going to say: ‘You know what? That was worth a try, but we’re not doing any more.'”
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters that Trump wanted to see a ceasefire, but that he had grown “weary and frustrated with both sides of the conflict”.
Asked if a package of secondary sanctions against Russia remains on the table, she said: “I think everything’s on the table.”
PEACE OR WAR
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 Zelenskiy and various members of NATO.
The Ukrainian president’s office did not immediately comment when asked about the call between Zelenskiy and Trump and there was no immediate word about it from the White House.
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.
Ukraine’s intelligence service said it also believed Moscow intended to fire an intercontinental ballistic missile on Sunday, though there was no confirmation from Russia that it had done so.
In June 2024, Putin said Ukraine must officially drop its NATO ambitions and withdraw its troops from the entire territory of four Ukrainian regions Russia claims.
After the European leaders’ phone call with Trump on Sunday, French President Emmanuel Macron said on X: “Tomorrow President Putin must show he wants peace by accepting the 30-day unconditional ceasefire proposed by President Trump and backed by Ukraine and Europe.”
Putin is wary of a ceasefire and says fighting cannot be paused until conditions are met, including a halt to Western arms for Kyiv.
European leaders say Putin is not serious about peace. They worry that Trump may abandon support for Kyiv, forcing it to accept a punitive peace deal that would leave Ukraine shorn of a fifth of its territory and lacking a strong security guarantee against possible future attack.
Before Trump returned to office this year, Washington joined Western European leaders and Ukraine in describing Russia’s invasion as an imperial-style land grab.
Trump’s administration has shifted U.S. policy towards accepting some of Russia’s account of the conflict, which Moscow says it launched because of a security threat from Ukraine’s drift towards the West.
(Reporting by Guy Faulconbridge and Vladimir Soldatkin in Moscow, Max Hunder and Tom Balmforth in Kyiv, Maxim Rodionov in London and Steve Holland, Susan Heavey Rami Ayyub and David Brunstrom in Washington; Editing by Clarence Fernandez and Gareth Jones)
