Trump and Putin to discuss Ukraine this week: Officials

US President Donald Trump and Russian counterpart Viadimir Putin are expected to speak this week, officials said on Sunday, as Washington and Kyiv’s European allies press Moscow to accept a ceasefire in the three-year war.

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The United States this week proposed a halt in fighting in the war after talks in Saudi Arabia, with Kyiv accepting the proposal.

Putin however has given no clear answer, instead listing a string of conditions and raising “serious questions” over the proposition.

Trump's envoy for the conflict, Steve Witkoff, who met for several hours with Putin days ago, told CNN in a televised interview that he thinks “the two presidents are going to have a really good and positive discussion this week.”

Earlier, Moscow said that US Secretary of State Marco Rubio called his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov and that the pair had discussed “concrete aspects of the implementation of understandings” at a US-Russia summit in Saudi Arabia last month.

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky on Saturday accused the Kremlin of not wanting to end the war and warned that Moscow wanted to first “improve their situation on the battlefield” before agreeing to any ceasefire.

The February Riyadh gathering was the first high-level meeting between the United States and Russia since Moscow launched its invasion in February 2022.