WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump is set to hold talks on Tuesday with Russian President Vladimir Putin as he looks to get buy-in on a U.S. ceasefire proposal that he hopes can create a pathway to ending Russia’s devastating war on Ukraine.
The White House is optimistic that peace is within reach even as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy remains skeptical that Putin is doing much beyond paying lip service to Trump as Russian forces continue to pound his country.
The engagement is just the latest turn in dramatically shifting U.S.-Russia relations as Trump has made quickly ending the conflict a top priority, even at the expense of straining ties with longtime American allies who want Putin to pay a price for the invasion.
“It’s a bad situation in Russia, and it’s a bad situation in Ukraine,” Trump told reporters on Monday. “What’s happening in Ukraine is not good, but we’re going to see if we can work a peace agreement, a ceasefire and peace. And I think we’ll be able to do it.”
In preparation for the Trump-Putin call, White House special envoy Steve Witkoff met last week with Putin in Moscow to discuss the proposal. Secretary of State Marco Rubio had persuaded senior Ukrainian officials during talks in Saudi Arabia to agree to the ceasefire framework.
The U.S. president said Washington and Moscow have already begun discussing “dividing up certain assets” between Ukraine and Russia as part of a deal to end the conflict.
Trump, who during his campaign pledged to quickly end the war, has at moments boasted of his relationship with Putin and blamed Ukraine for Russia’s unprovoked invasion, all while accusing Zelenskyy of unnecessarily prolonging the biggest land war in Europe since World War II.
Trump has said that swaps of land and power plants will be part of the conversation with Putin.
Witkoff and White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt suggested that U.S. and Russian officials have discussed the fate of the Zaporizhzhia power plant in southern Ukraine.
The power plant has been caught in the crossfire since Moscow sent troops into Ukraine in 2022 and seized the facility shortly after. The U.N.’s International Atomic Energy Agency has repeatedly expressed alarm about the nuclear power plant, Europe’s largest, fueling fears of a potential nuclear catastrophe.
The nuclear power plant is a significant asset, producing nearly a quarter of Ukraine’s electricity in the year before the war.
“I can say we are on the 10th yard line of peace,” Leavitt said. “And we’ve never been closer to a peace deal than we are in this moment. And the president, as you know, is determined to get one done.”
But Bradley Bowman, senior director of the Center on Military and Political Power at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, questioned whether Putin is ready to end the war or will hold out for potential further concessions as Trump grows impatient.
After a disastrous Feb. 28 White House meeting with Zelenskyy, Trump temporarily cut off some military intelligence-sharing and aid to Ukraine. It was restored after the Ukrainians last week signed off on the Trump administration’s 30-day ceasefire proposal.
