Trump Makes Big Announcement Following ‘Very Frank’ Two-Hour Call With Putin

After a two-hour phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday, President Donald Trump announced that ceasefire negotiations between Russia and Ukraine would begin immediately.

In a statement following the call, Trump said he believes the call “went very well” and that the “tone and spirit of the conversation was excellent.”

“Russia and Ukraine will immediately start negotiations toward a Ceasefire and, more importantly, an END to the War,” Trump said. “The conditions for that will be negotiated between the two parties, as it can only be, because they know details of a negotiation that nobody else would be aware of.”

Trump added that once the “bloodbath” ends, there will be opportunities for Russia to do “largescale” trade with the United States and have “tremendous opportunity for Russia to create massive amounts of jobs and wealth.”

Trump said he spoke with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, French President Emmanuel Macron, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, of Germany, and Finnish President Alexander Stubb immediately after his call with Putin.

Trump said that the Vatican, “as represented by” Pope Leo XIV, “has stated that it would be very interested in hosting the negotiations.”

After the call, Putin spoke to reporters on-camera and described the call as “very frank” and very useful.”

“The US president expressed his position on the cessation of hostilities, ceasefire, and from my end, I have emphasized that Russia stands for peaceful resolution of the Ukrainian crisis,” Putin said. “We just need to outline the most effective routes of moving towards peace.”

Ahead of the call, Russia launched a massive drone attack on Ukraine with exploding drones and decoys, Fox News reported. Eighty-eight drones were reportedly intercepted, and 128 were lost in the attack on the Kyiv, Dnipropetrovsk, and Donetsk regions.

Trump has supported a ceasefire between the two sides, though Russia has pushed for an agreement to end the war with Ukraine making concessions. Trump has grown frustrated with both Putin and Zelensky in his efforts to bring the war to an end.

“He’s grown weary and frustrated with both sides of the conflict,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters Monday before the call. “He has made it clear to both sides that he wants to see a peaceful resolution and ceasefire as soon as possible.”

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Vice President JD Vance said there has been “a bit of an impasse” in the talks and that the United States is “more than willing to walk away.”

“President Putin…he doesn’t quite know how to get out of the war,” Vance said. “There is fundamental mistrust between Russia and the West. It’s one of the things that the president thinks is frankly stupid that we should be able to move beyond the stakes that have been made in the past. But it takes two to tango. I know the president is willing to do that but if Russia is not willing to do that, then eventually we will have to say ‘this is not our war.’”

Trump announced the call on Saturday, stating that he planned to talk about “stopping the ‘bloodbath’ that is on average, more than 5,000 Russian and Ukrainian soldiers a week.”

“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,” Trump added. “God bless us all!!!”

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Last week, Zelensky traveled to Turkey in the hopes of having a face-to-face conversation with Putin. When Putin did not show up, the two leaders’ underlings met and successfully negotiated a prisoner swap of 1,000 people from each side, though no agreement on peace was made, according to Axios. The meeting was the first direct negotiations between the two sides since March 2022.

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On Sunday, leaders of the United Kingdom, France, Germany, and Italy urged Trump to sanction Putin if he doesn’t agree to an immediate, unconditional ceasefire, Axios reported.

Trump has said that the war “has to stop.”

“We spent $350 billion there — just handed,” he said. “Nobody even knows where the money is. There’s no accounting.”

Trump added that Zelensky is the “greatest salesman, maybe in history” because “every time he came to the United States, he’d walk away with $100 billion.”

“That’s a good salesman, right?” Trump added. “Last time he didn’t do as well. He only got $60 billion.”