President Donald Trump's phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin on the Ukraine war wrapped up after about two hours. Photo:
President Donald Trump's phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin on the Ukraine war has concluded after about two hours.
Earlier, White House deputy chief of staff Dan Scavino said the call was "going well" when he provided a status update on the meeting on social media.
A Russian source with knowledge of the call told CNN that it went "very well".
A key priority for the call, sources familiar with the talks told CNN, was securing an agreement on concessions Russia was willing to make - including whether it was willing to withdraw forces from territory it seized in the past three years since invading Ukraine.
Trump himself [suggested as much](https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/world/544643/trump-cites-positive-messages-on-potential-russia-ukraine-ceasefire) while speaking with reporters aboard Air Force One on Sunday, saying that US negotiators have discussed "dividing up certain assets".
Negotiations to end the war kicked off after Trump and Putin spoke by phone last month, marking a resumption of communication after a long period of silence between the White House and the Kremlin. Since then, the president hosted Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky for an Oval Office meeting that ended with Trump and Vice President JD Vance shouting at him and asking the Ukrainians to leave, followed by the US temporarily pausing military assistance and intelligence sharing.
Weeks of intense back-and-forth negotiations between top US officials - led by Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and national security adviser Mike Waltz - and top Ukrainian and Russian officials led to a breakthrough, with the announcement of a US-led ceasefire proposal. After Zelensky said last week that his country had accepted the 30-day proposal, the US made clear the onus was on Russia to agree, with Trump saying, "Russia holds all the cards."
Efforts to bring Russia closer to an agreement intensified with Witkoff's visit to Moscow on Thursday, where he met directly with Putin for several hours, CNN previously reported. Witkoff told CNN the meeting with Putin - his second known meeting with the Russian president this year - was "positive" and that the two sides had "narrowed the differences between them."
_More to come ..._
**_\- CNN_**