Following his meetings with President Volodymyr Zelensky and European leaders in Washington D.C. on August 18, U.S. President Donald Trump telephoned Russian President Vladimir Putin to discuss the day's talks.
The call took place after midnight Moscow time, according to Russian foreign policy advisor Yuri Ushakov. During the conversation, Trump reportedly briefed Putin on his negotiations with Zelensky and the European leaders. The two presidents also expressed support for direct talks between the Russian and Ukrainian delegations and discussed the possibility of raising the level of representatives from both sides for the negotiations.
"If everything works out well today, we'll have a trilat — and I think there will be a reasonable chance of ending the war when we do that," Trump said during his meeting with Zelensky earlier. “We will come to a resolution today, I think, on almost everything, including probably the security.”
The presence of European allies was notable, as they had sought to reaffirm U.S. support for Ukraine after Trump’s recent “very warm” summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Aug. 15 in Alaska.
Following a recent meeting with Putin, Trump has shifted his focus away from a ceasefire and toward a comprehensive peace deal involving territorial concessions.
The two leaders spoke for three hours in Anchorage, Alaska though no formal peace agreement was made.After the meeting, Trump said they had made headway and "largely agreed" on security guarantees for Ukraine and territorial swaps.
According to a source from the Ukrainian Presidential Office who spoke to the Kyiv Independent, Moscow's proposal would require Kyiv to withdraw from the Ukrainian-controlled parts of the partially occupied Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts in exchange for a Russian pullback from parts of the Sumy and Kharkiv oblasts.
Citing two European officials briefed on the matter, the New York Times reported that Trump emerged from the meeting believing that a deal could be reached if Kyiv gave up unoccupied Ukrainian lands—specifically the entire Donbas region.
Putin reportedly offered to freeze the front lines in the partially occupied Kherson and Zaporizhzhia oblasts if Ukraine withdrew entirely from Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts. Axios journalist Barak Ravid, citing a source familiar with the talks, also reported that Putin asked Trump to recognize Ukraine's Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson oblasts as Russian, along with Crimea.
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