President Donald Trump said he had a “very good” call with Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky on Wednesday, insisting that efforts to secure a ceasefire remained on track despite the lack of a deal so far with Russia’s Vladimir Putin.
As Kyiv and Moscow accused each other of not respecting a halt in attacks against energy infrastructure, agreed during Trump’s talks with Putin on Tuesday, the US president said he spoke for around an hour with his Ukrainian counterpart.
“Much of the discussion was based on the call made yesterday with President Putin in order to align both Russia and Ukraine in terms of their requests and needs,” Trump said on his Truth Social network.
“We are very much on track.”
The call was believed to be the first between the pair since Trump and Zelensky had a blazing, televised row in the Oval Office two and a half weeks ago that led to a brief halt in US aid for Ukraine.
Zelensky later relented and agreed to a US plan for an unconditional 30-day ceasefire with Russia, plus a deal giving Washington preferential access to Ukraine’s minerals.
Kyiv said Zelensky was being briefed about Tuesday’s call between Trump and Putin that saw the Kremlin leader agree to a limited 30-day halt on strikes against Ukraine´s power grid.
But Putin refused to agree to a full ceasefire, insisting that Western aid to Kyiv must first stop, that Ukraine must not be allowed to rearm, and that it must halt mandatory mobilisation.
