President Donald Trump anticipated the scope of the conversation he will hold on Tuesday with Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin regarding a potential ceasefire in Ukraine.
Speaking to press aboard Air Force One on Sunday, Trump said "we will be talking about land, we will be talking about power plants" as well as "dividing up certain assets." It wasn't immediately clear if Kyiv agreed to discuss such concessions in order to end the war.
"A lot of work has been done over the weekend. We want to see if we can bring that war to an end. Maybe we can, maybe we can't, but I think we have a very good chance," Trump added.
The phone conversation between Trump and Putin comes after top Trump officials met with Ukrainian counterparts last Tuesday in Saudi Arabia to agree on conditions for a ceasefire, and a trip by special envoy Steve Witkoff to Moscow on Thursday for discussions with Putin.
In an interview with CNN on Sunday, Witkoff described the four-hour meeting as "positive" and said it was "solutions-based." "We hope to see a ceasefire within weeks," he added.
Putin said last Thursday before the meeting that he agrees in principle to the U.S.'s proposal for a 30-day ceasefire in Ukraine, but with a major caveat: he clarified that terms need to be worked out and that any agreement should pave the way to a lasting peace.
Putin added that there needs to be a mechanism to control any breaches of the truce and raised doubts about the possibility that Ukraine will use the ceasefire to rearm and mobilize. "We agree with the proposals to halt the fighting, but we proceed from the assumption that the ceasefire should lead to lasting peace and remove the root causes of the crisis," he added.
The Russian president had said last June that in order to achieve peace Ukraine must officially drop any ambitions to join NATO and withdraw from the regions claimed by the country, which represent about a fifth of its territory. It is unclear whether such demands stand ahead of the talks.
Russia is approaching the talks from a stronger position than weeks ago after retaking much of the Kursk region, which had been taken by Ukraine in a counter-offensive last year. Putin made a surprise visit to the region on Thursday, likely to boost troop morale. "Our task in the near future, in the shortest possible time frame, is to decisively defeat the enemy entrenched in the Kursk region," he said.
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