Trump calls with Putin after peace envoys visit to Moscow, Kyiv
on Google
U.S. President Donald Trump held a phone call with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin on Sept. 8, the Kremlin said, amid Washington's renewed diplomatic push to end the Russia-Ukraine war.
The call follows visits by Trump's peace envoys, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, to Moscow and, for the first time, to Kyiv over the weekend to seek a breakthrough in peace talks.
A U.S. official told the Kyiv Independent on Sept. 6 that Trump would call the Russian leader after being briefed by his envoys. The U.S. president is then expected to call with President Volodymyr Zelensky.
Witkoff and Kushner held talks with Zelensky and his team on Sept. 6, a day after meeting Putin in Moscow. The White House said the Moscow talks included "substantive plans for next steps," though neither side announced a breakthrough.
People familiar with the latest negotiations told the Kyiv Independent that while the envoys brought revised peace proposals, no breakthrough was achieved as Putin appears intent on escalating his war against Ukraine.
One of these proposals was said to include a mutual pause in aerial strikes — an idea that Russia has not yet agreed to. Moscow only agreed to a limited three-day pause in strikes against the capital cities during the envoys' visits.
In a press conference following the talks with the U.S. envoys, Zelensky said that the war is likely to continue into the winter months, as Ukraine braces for a new wave of Russian strikes against the country's energy grid.
The only tangible progress seems to be Washington's push for a new round of trilateral talks, a possibility the Kremlin has not ruled out.
The renewed discussions come after the U.S.-led peace efforts effectively stalled as Washington's focus shifted to the war in Iran, while Kyiv and Moscow remain far apart on territorial issues.
Putin told the U.S. envoys on Sept. 5 that he expects Russia to meet its "goals" and that Moscow wants the "root causes" of its war to be resolved.
The Kremlin has repeatedly rejected a ceasefire and demanded that Kyiv cede Donbas, a partially occupied and strategically vital region in Ukraine's east.
Ukraine, in turn, has urged a ceasefire along the current front lines while stressing the importance of Western-backed security guarantees to ward off any future Russian aggression.
