President Donald Trump said he had a “good and very productive” phone call with Russian leader Vladimir Putin ahead of a face-to-face meeting with Ukraine's president.
Volodymyr Zelensky and Trump are set to meet Sunday afternoon at the US president's Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida as he pushes for a peace deal in the long-running war. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov confirmed the Trump-Putin call.
Ahead of the Trump meeting, Zelensky met with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney in Halifax, Nova Scotia and held a flurry of calls with European leaders, including NATO chief Mark Rutte, to align their stance.
Trump has ramped up pressure on Ukraine to make concessions and dangled promises of economic cooperation at Russia. While Zelensky has repeatedly declared his readiness for a ceasefire to allow space for peace negotiations, Putin has refused Trump's calls for a truce without first having reached agreement on a deal.
Earlier Sunday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov called Europe “the main obstacle to peace,” saying leaders there, along with Ukraine, had shown no readiness for constructive talks.
Russia spent the weekend bombarding Ukraine, pounding Kyiv with hundreds of drones and missiles and carrying out a large strike on Kherson in Ukraine's southeast. Parts of the capital have been left without power, with damage to energy infrastructure being assessed and emergency repairs underway.
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