WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. President Donald Trump will communicate with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday in a attainable pivot level in efforts to finish the battle in Ukraine and a chance for Trump to proceed reorienting American overseas coverage.
Trump disclosed the upcoming dialog to reporters whereas flying from Florida to Washington on Air Power One on Sunday night, whereas the Kremlin confirmed Putin’s participation on Monday morning.
“We will see if we have something to announce maybe by Tuesday. I will be speaking to President Putin on Tuesday,” Trump mentioned. “A lot of work’s been done over the weekend. We want to see if we can bring that war to an end.”
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Monday morning confirmed the plans for the 2 leaders to talk on Tuesday, however declined to present particulars, saying that “we never get ahead of events” and “the content of conversations between two presidents are not subject to any prior discussion.”
European allies are cautious of Trump’s affinity for Putin and his hardline stance towards Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who confronted sharp criticism when he visited the Oval Workplace a bit greater than two weeks in the past.
Though Russia failed in its preliminary aim to topple Ukraine with its invasion three years in the past, it nonetheless controls massive swaths of the nation.
Trump mentioned land and energy vegetation are a part of the dialog round bringing the battle to an in depth.
“We will be talking about land. We will be talking about power plants,” he mentioned, a course of he described as “dividing up certain assets.”
Trump particular envoy Steve Witkoff lately visited Moscow final week to advance negotiations.
Russia illegally annexed 4 Ukrainian areas after launching its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 — the Donetsk and Luhansk areas within the east and the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia areas within the southeast of the nation — however doesn’t totally management any of the 4. Final yr, Putin listed Kyiv’s withdrawal of troops from all 4 areas as one of many calls for for peace.
In 2014, the Kremlin additionally annexed Crimea from Ukraine.
Within the occupied a part of the Zaporizhzhia area, Moscow controls the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Energy Plant — the most important in Europe. The plant has repeatedly been caught within the crossfire because the invasion. The Worldwide Atomic Power Company, a U.N. physique, has regularly expressed alarm concerning the plant amid fears of a possible nuclear disaster.
Throughout his dialog with reporters on Air Power One, Trump mentioned he was pushing ahead together with his plans for tariffs on April 2 regardless of current disruption within the inventory market and nervousness concerning the financial affect.
“April 2 is a liberating day for our country,” he mentioned. “We’re getting back some of the wealth that very, very foolish presidents gave away because they had no clue what they were doing.”
Trump has sometimes modified course on some tariff plans, resembling with Mexico, however he mentioned he had no intention of doing so relating to reciprocal tariffs.
“They charge us and we charge them,” he mentioned. “Then in addition to that, on autos, on steel, on aluminum, we’re going to have some additional tariffs.”
