MOSCOW/WASHINGTON: U.S. President Donald Trump spoke to Russia’s Vladimir Putin on Monday about peace in Ukraine after Washington said there was an impasse over ending Europe’s deadliest conflict since World War Two and that the United States may have to walk away.
President Putin sent thousands of troops into Ukraine in February 2022, triggering the gravest confrontation between Russia and the West since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis.
Trump, who says he wants to be remembered as a peacemaker, has repeatedly called for an end to the “bloodbath” of Ukraine, which his administration casts as a proxy war between the United States and Russia.
Under pressure from Trump, delegates from the warring countries met last week in Istanbul for the first time since 2022, after Putin proposed direct talks and Europeans and Ukraine demanded an immediate ceasefire.
A White House official said the call was underway.
Shortly before the call, U.S. Vice President JD Vance told reporters that Washington recognised there was an impasse in ending the war – and that if Moscow was not willing to engage then eventually the United States would have to say it was not its war.
“We realize there’s a bit of an impasse here. And I think the president’s going to say to President Putin: ‘Look, are you serious? Are you real about this?’” Vance said as he prepared to depart from Italy.
“I think honestly that President Putin, he doesn’t quite know how to get out of the war,“ Vance said, adding that he had just spoken to Trump.
He said it “takes two to tango. I know the President’s willing to do that, but if Russia is not willing to do that, then we’re eventually just going to say, this is not our war.”
“We’re going to try to end it, but if we can’t end it, we’re eventually going to say: ‘You know what? That was worth a try, but we’re not doing anymore.’”
