Trump to speak with Putin on Tuesday as he previews high-stakes call on Ukraine ceasefire deal
President Donald Trump confirmed that he will speak to Russia’s President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday.
‘I’ll be speaking to [President Putin] on Tuesday. A lot of work’s been done over the weekend,’ Trump revealed.
‘We want to see if we can bring that war to an end,’ Trump told reporters on Air Force One as he traveled back to Washington, D.C. from Mar-a-Lago on Sunday.
‘Maybe we can, maybe we can’t, but I think we have a very good chance,’ he added.
Trump said he plans to discuss land and power plants with the Russian leader regarding potential concessions.
‘I think we have a lot of it already discussed very much by both sides, Ukraine and Russia,’ Trump continued. ‘We are already talking about that… dividing up certain assets.’
But as Trump strikes an optimistic tone, Russia’s deputy chair of its Security Council Dmitry Medvedev slammed the French President Emmanuel Macron and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer for proposing peacekeepers from NATO countries in Ukraine.
He wrote on X that ‘means war with NATO’ and suggested Trump was aware of the demand.
President Trump speaking to reporters on Air Force One on his way back to Washington, DC from Florida on on March 16, 2025 as National Security Adviser Mike Waltz looks on
Over the weekend, he made bold predictions about the ceasefire deal in Ukraine.
The 78-year-old president sat down for a pre-tapped interview with the weekly news program Full Measure released on Sunday where he was asked about his plans should Putin not agree to a ceasefire.
‘Bad news for this world because so many people are dying,’ Trump responded.
But the president insisted he thinks Putin will agree to the deal.
‘I think he’s going to agree. I really do. I think I know him pretty well, and I think he’s going to agree,’ Trump told anchor Sharyl Attkisson.
Trump would not say during his interview whether he was speaking with Putin recently, but said ‘we are dealing with him.’
It comes as Trump administration special envoy Steve Witkoff held an hours-long meeting with Putin behind closed doors on Thursday as the U.S. pushes the ceasefire deal.
‘It was positive. It was a solution-based discussion,’ Witkoff told CNN’s State of the Union on Sunday upon returning to the U.S.
He said he expects there will be a call between Trump and Putin ‘this week.’
Trump said in his taped interview that they’re looking to to get Russia onboard with the ceasefire deal reached with Ukraine and said it’s going ‘ok.’
He suggested they would know a little bit more on Monday.
Attkisson noted in her interview with the president that he claimed he would have the war settled in 24 hours.
‘Well, I was being a little bit sarcastic when I said that,’ Trump responded. ‘What I really mean is I would like to get it settled.’
Trump predicted that he thinks he will be ‘successful.’
Special Envoy Steve Witkoff said he expects a call this week between President Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin after he met with the Russian leader
Putin said on Thursday he supports a ceasefire but also outlined details that needed to be negotiated before a deal could be made.
Witkoff declined to outline exactly what Russia was demanding on Sunday but said that the two sides are a ‘lot closer’ than they had been.
‘We’ve narrowed the differences between them,’ Witkoff said. He said that he’s been in discussions with Trump over the weekend on how to narrow the differences ‘even further.’
He would not say whether the U.S. would recognize Ukrainian territory annexed by Russia as Russian territory in the future.
Witkoff noted on Sunday that the U.S. also continues to have conversations with the Ukrainians.
He signaled that he believes where will be a deal in the coming weeks after he met with Putin despite it being unclear exactly what Russia is willing to agree to.
‘President Trump wants to see an end to this. I think President Putin wants to see an end to this. I think President Zelensky wants to see an end to this,’ Witkoff said.
He said the details need to be worked out at the table, but he believes all sides are ‘committed to doing that.’
Secretary of State Marco Rubio was asked last week how long Putin had to agree to a deal, but he appeared more cautious in his assessment.
‘I think the question is: Are we actually moving towards a ceasefire or is this a delay tactic?’ he told reporters.
‘I’m not going to answer that because I can’t characterize that for you right now,’ Rubio added. He said there they were not there yet, but he insisted that they would get there.
