Ukraine’s foreign minister says it is time for Russia to show it ‘wants peace’ as US, Russian leaders hold talks.
Ukraine has pressed Russia to accept a US proposal for a ceasefire as United States President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin hold talks on the war.
Kyiv and its European allies demanded that the Russian president fully accept the US-proposed 30-day ceasefire during the call, which began at 10:00 (14:00GMT) on Tuesday, according to a White House official.
“We expect the Russian side to unconditionally agree to this proposal,” said Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha ahead of the meeting. “It is time for Russia to show whether it really wants peace.”
Trump said on Monday that Washington and Moscow had already discussed “dividing up certain assets” – including territory and power plants – between Ukraine and Russia as part of the ceasefire deal.
In the run-up to talks, the Semafor news website published a report that cited two sources saying the Trump administration was considering recognising Crimea, which Russia annexed from Ukraine in 2014, as Russian territory.
The Kremlin has repeatedly said that Crimea, where Russia’s Black Sea Fleet is based and where the pre-annexation population was mostly Russian speakers, is already formally part of Russia.
Kyiv has said it wants the Black Sea peninsula – internationally recognised as Ukrainian territory by most countries – back.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Monday that Putin does not want peace, accusing him of continuing “to drag out this war” in a bid to better the country’s military position ahead of any halt in fighting.
Putin’s spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Tuesday that Trump and Putin will discuss the war in Ukraine but added that there are also a “large number of questions” regarding the normalisation of US-Russia relations.
Nuclear plant
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio persuaded senior Ukrainian officials during talks in Saudi Arabia to agree to the ceasefire framework.
In preparation for the Trump-Putin call, White House special envoy Steve Witkoff met last week with Putin in Moscow to discuss the proposal.
He suggested that US and Russian officials had discussed the fate of the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant in southern Ukraine.
The plant, caught in the crossfire since Moscow seized it after invading Ukraine in 2022, is a significant asset, producing nearly a quarter of Ukraine’s electricity in the year before the war.
Trump claimed on Monday that Russian forces had “surrounded” Ukrainian troops who took control of 1,300 square kilometres (500 square miles) of Russia’s Kursk region last year.
Zelenskyy has acknowledged that the Ukrainian forces are facing difficulties there, but refutes Russian claims that they have encircled his troops.