Trump to speak with Putin as Russia ramps up strikes in Ukraine

KYIV, Ukraine – President Donald Trump said Saturday that he would speak with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday, days after the first direct peace talks between Ukraine and Russia in years resulted in a prisoner swap agreement but not a temporary ceasefire.

Trump said Saturday that he would also call Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who has agreed to an unconditional and immediate ceasefire, as well as leaders of the NATO alliance.

“Hopefully it will be a productive day, a ceasefire will take place, and this very violent war – a war that should have never happened – will end,” Trump wrote on social media.

The Kremlin confirmed Saturday evening that Trump and Putin would speak, in what is set to be their second publicly acknowledged call in Trump’s second term to discuss Ukraine. Their first call, in February, was celebrated by many in Moscow, especially after it emerged that Trump had called Putin before Zelenskyy.

It is not the first time Trump, who said on the campaign trail that he would get the war “settled before I even become president,” has expressed optimism that he could bring it to a swift end. The phone calls are set to take place as the Kremlin has intensified assaults across the front and stepped up bombardments of Ukrainian cities.

On Saturday morning, a Russian drone attack killed at least nine people after hitting a shuttle bus carrying civilians in the Sumy region in northeastern Ukraine, according to local residents and Ukrainian authorities. Attacks in other parts of the country killed at least five more civilians, according to the Ukrainian authorities.

While Ukrainian and Russian officials sat down Friday in Istanbul face-to-face for the first time since the start of the war – agreeing on a deal to swap 1,000 prisoners each – there is little evidence that the frenetic swirl of diplomatic activity has brought the two sides closer to negotiating a ceasefire.

Zelenskyy condemned Saturday’s strike on the bus as a “deliberate attack on civilians.”

“The Russians could not have failed to understand what kind of vehicle they were targeting,” he said in a statement. The Russian military did not have any immediate comment on the attack.

In his statement, Zelenskyy said he believed the only way the Kremlin would make peace was if Putin were forced to do so.

“We are expecting strong sanctions against Russia from the United States, from Europe and from all our partners,” Zelenskyy said.

The European Union is set to push through a new raft of sanctions Tuesday, but Trump has not said whether the United States would do the same.

On Friday night, he told Fox News that he believed he could personally broker an end to the fighting by sitting down with Putin, adding that be believed that “Putin is tired of this whole thing.”

After the U.S. president spoke to Putin in February, he expressed similar confidence in Putin’s desire for peace.

At that time, the Kremlin said Putin had told Trump of “the need to eliminate the root causes of the conflict,” and the Russian leader has not wavered in his maximalist aims of territorial conquest and preventing Ukraine from joining NATO.

With world leaders and dignitaries gathering Sunday for the inaugural Mass of the newly elected Pope Leo XIV, high-stakes diplomatic talks were happening on the sidelines in Rome.

Zelenskyy is scheduled to attend the ceremony, the Vatican said in a statement. So will Vice President JD Vance, who clashed with the Ukrainian leader in a disastrous meeting in the Oval Office at the end of February.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the Vatican could be a venue for Russia-Ukraine peace talks after Pope Leo vowed to personally make “every effort” to help end the war.

Rubio also spoke on Saturday with the Russian foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov. The Russian Foreign Ministry said the call was initiated by the American side. The State Department said that Rubio had emphasized Trump’s call for “an immediate ceasefire.”

Kyiv has long worried that Trump and Putin would come to a mutual understanding and then try to impose their terms on Ukraine. As Washington has moved more in alignment with Moscow’s position, Europe’s leading military powers have reaffirmed their commitment to helping Ukraine defend itself.

Military analysts and critics of the Trump administration’s policy, including Republicans, have said that pressuring Ukraine while taking no action against Russia was always doomed to failure.

“I do not believe there is any prospect for the end to the war this year,” Mick Ryan, a retired Australian general and fellow at the Lowy Institute, a Sydney-based research group, said in an interview. “Russia has maintained, and doubled down, on its maximalist goals, reinforcing them in negotiations in Turkey this week.”

The focus on territorial gains and demands, which is mainly what the White House has been focused on, misses the point, he said.

“Mr. Putin’s primary goal is snuffing out Ukraine’s democracy and culture, denying it agency in its own affairs,” Ryan said.

Serhii, 44, a volunteer in Sumy who on Saturday helped rescue people injured in the bus attack, said he felt betrayed by the Trump administration’s diplomatic efforts. Asking that his family name not be used out of concern for their safety, he said, “Everything Trump is doing – or not doing – leads to more destruction, the collapse of peace.”

Viktor Vovk, 60, was driving the bus and had just pulled away from a checkpoint when the drone struck.

“I didn’t even realize what had happened at first,” he said when reached by phone as he recovered from his injuries. But then he turned his head and saw bodies torn apart and others trapped in the wreckage.

“God help you never have to see something like that,” he said.

The nine people who were killed Saturday included a family – a father, mother and daughter, Ukrainian authorities said. At least seven more people were injured.

The bus was struck by a Russian Lancet drone at 6:17 a.m. local time outside Bilopillia, a few miles from the Russian border, which had a prewar population of roughly 15,000 people.

Oleksandr Merezhko, chair of the Ukrainian parliament’s foreign affairs committee, said Saturday’s bloodshed was further evidence of a failed U.S. policy.

He pointed out that Trump had demanded an immediate, unconditional ceasefire for 30 days, which Zelenskyy accepted even though Kyiv had long insisted that security guarantees precede any truce. He then called on Zelenskyy to take up Putin’s offer to restart direct negotiations in Istanbul, but then undercut those talks, saying that only he and Putin together could resolve the war.

“Such inconsistency, illogical steps and lack of strategy undermine U.S. credibility and encourage Putin to continue to insist on his maximalist demands,” Merezhko said. “Putin has outmaneuvered Trump.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.