Trump will talk to the leaders of Russia and Ukraine on Monday, after talks in Turkey

U.S. President Donald Trump announced on Saturday that he would speak with the presidents of Russia and Ukraine on Monday after Russian negotiators made fresh demands during discussions between the two countries, according to a Ukrainian official, before a ceasefire could be reached.

In Moscow, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov informed Russian news outlets that talks between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin were being prepared.

For the first time since March 2022, weeks after Russia’s full-scale invasion of its smaller neighbor, the parties met in person for the first time Friday in Turkey.

According to a senior Ukrainian source with knowledge of the negotiations, Russian negotiators would not agree to a ceasefire until Ukraine withdrew its soldiers from all Ukrainian territories that Moscow claimed.

Trump stated in a post on Truth Social that he would meet with Putin at 10 a.m. Eastern (1400 GMT) on Monday to talk about ending the war.

“THE SUBJECTS OF THE CALL WILL BE, STOPPING THE ‘BLOODBATH’ THAT IS KILLING, ON AVERAGE, MORE THAN 5000 RUSSIAN AND UKRAINIAN SOLDIERS A WEEK, AND TRADE,” he stated in his letter.

After that, he said, he would talk to NATO members and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy.

“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.”

Last week, when in the Gulf, Trump had promised to go to Turkey for the negotiations provided Putin would come as well, but Putin sent a team of negotiators instead.

Throughout the more than three-year-old conflict, the president has been applying pressure on Zelenskiy and Putin to accept a ceasefire.

The conditions Russia proposed at the meeting on Friday were not discussed by the Kremlin. After a brief one-hour and forty-minute discussion, an agreement was reached to exchange 1,000 prisoners of war on both sides. When that would occur has not been indicated by any of the two nations.

After a Russian drone killed nine bus passengers in the Sumy region of northeastern Ukraine on Saturday, Zelenskiy demanded harsher penalties against Moscow. “This was a deliberate killing of civilians,” he claimed.

“The massacres must be stopped by applying pressure to Russia. In the absence of more severe sanctions and more pressure, Russia will not pursue genuine diplomatic efforts.

In Sumy, Russia claimed to have hit a military target, although it denied attacking civilians. Another village in eastern Ukraine was taken by Russian soldiers, according to its defense ministry.

Sergei Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, told U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio over the phone that he was pleased with the “positive role” that the United States had played in securing a restart of negotiations between Russia and Ukraine. Lavrov stated in a statement from the Russian foreign ministry that contact would continue.

Rubio stated on the CBS television show “Face the Nation” that Lavrov claimed the Russians were “working on a series of ideas and requirements that they would have in order to move forward with a ceasefire and further negotiations.”

“Your question is, ‘Are they tapping us along?'” he stated during the Sunday interview. “Well, that’s what we’re trying to find out.”

Rubio told CBS that the Vatican was a “very generous offer that may be taken up on.” Earlier in Rome, Rubio had told reporters that the Vatican might serve as a venue to enable future communications between Russia and Ukraine.

Demanding an immediate cessation of fire

Ukraine and Western nations, notably the United States, have called on Russia to accept an unconditional ceasefire that will endure for at least 30 days.

Moscow’s negotiators, according to the Ukrainian source, have called for the evacuation of Ukrainian forces from the Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia, Kherson, and Luhansk regions of Ukraine, with a ceasefire to follow.

That and other demands, according to the source, exceeded the parameters of a draft peace agreement that the US put forth last month following discussions with Moscow.

Peskov said negotiations should take place “absolutely behind closed doors” and refrained from commenting on the Ukrainian account.

He stated that the prisoner exchange and additional work between the two sides would be the following stages. Although he did not elaborate, Peskov stated that Putin might see Zelenskiy provided “certain agreements” were made.

Earlier in the week, Zelenskiy gave Putin a challenge to meet with him face-to-face, but the Russian leader turned him down.

Following the hosting of the negotiations, Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan declared his nation’s intention to continue its mediation role.

Rally Support for Ukraine

Following the meeting on Friday, Ukraine started mobilizing its allies to confront Moscow more forcefully.

UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy told Reuters, “Once again Russia is not serious,” while in Pakistan. “At what point do we say to Putin enough is enough?”

The negotiations in Istanbul, according to French President Emmanuel Macron, had been ineffective.

“We have what today? Nothin’. I am confident that President Trump, conscious of American credibility, will respond to President Putin’s cynicism.

The EU is drafting a new set of sanctions against Moscow, which France warned this week should be designed to “suffocate” the Russian economy, according to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.

It’s unclear, however, how much more they can do after stepping up sanctions for almost three years.

Trump’s initiatives have regularly thrown Ukraine and its European leaders off balance as they attempt to present a united front and pressure Putin to negotiate a ceasefire.

Trump stated on the eve of the meeting that no progress on peace could be made until he had met with Putin, despite having instructed Zelenskiy to accept Russia’s offer of direct negotiations in Turkey.

Trump and Putin are ready to meet, according to the Kremlin, but the meeting needs to be well-planned. The U.S. and Russia had not communicated since Friday’s discussions, it claimed.