Trump speaks to Putin amid ‘impasse’ on ending war in Ukraine

MOSCOW/WASHINGTON – US President Donald Trump spoke to his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin on May 19 about peace in Ukraine after Washington said there was an impasse over ending Europe’s deadliest conflict since World War II and that the US may have to walk away.

Mr Putin sent tens of thousands of troops into Ukraine in February 2022, triggering the gravest confrontation between Russia and the West since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis.

Mr Trump, who said he wants to be remembered as a peacemaker, has repeatedly called for an end to the “bloodbath” in Ukraine, which his administration casts as a proxy war between the US and Russia.

Under pressure from Mr Trump, delegates from the warring countries met last week in Istanbul for the first time since 2022, after Mr Putin proposed direct talks and the Europeans and Ukraine demanded an immediate ceasefire.

A White House official said the call was under way. Mr Putin was speaking from Russia’s Black Sea resort of Sochi, while Mr Trump was in Washington.

According to a person familiar with Mr Putin’s thinking, the Russian leader headed into the call believing he has a strong hand.

Mr Putin is confident that his forces can break through Ukraine’s defences by the end of the year to take full control of four regions that he has claimed for Russia, said the source, who asked not to be named discussing private conversations. 

That means the Russian leader is unlikely to offer any meaningful concessions to Mr Trump when the two leaders speak, and European officials are worried that the US President may try to force through a settlement regardless. 

Shortly before the call, US Vice-President J.D. Vance told reporters that Washington recognised there was “a bit of an impasse” in ending the war – and that if Moscow was not willing to engage, then eventually the US would have to say it was not its war.

Mr Trump has been pushing for a quick end to the war that is now deep into its fourth year and hopes to unlock a deal in a direct conversation with Mr Putin.

The Russian leader, for his part, has given no indication that he is ready to stop fighting as his troops slowly grind forward on the battlefield, and that has fuelled concern in Kyiv and other European capitals that Ukraine could be pushed into giving up more ground. 

“Unfortunately, where we are in the war, you don’t see strong incentives for Russia to agree to a ceasefire,” said Mr Michael Kofman, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, at a conference in Tallinn, Estonia, on May 18. 

There is a growing sense that US efforts to impose a ceasefire are culminating, and officials in Europe are unsure whether Mr Trump will ramp up pressure on Russia or simply move on to the next challenge if efforts fail.

Mr Trump has promised to brief Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and some of his Nato allies once he has finished speaking with his Russian counterpart.

“Pressure on Russia must be increased,” Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said on May 19 on the X social media platform.

Ukraine is focused on a “full and immediate ceasefire” to kick-start talks, and “Moscow must now understand the consequences of impeding the peace process”, he said.

Despite all the talk about ending the fighting, Mr Putin is ready for a protracted war if that is what is required to achieve his goals, and he is sanguine about the prospect of further US sanctions, according to two other people close to the Kremlin. 

Russia’s economy has largely adjusted to years of sweeping sanctions. The Kremlin has repeatedly said that Russia is unmoved by threat of further restrictions, and that it will not persuade Mr Putin to change his war aims.

Mr Sergei Markov, a political consultant with close ties to the Kremlin, said: “Trump wants Putin to agree to a truce but he absolutely doesn’t want to. But Putin isn’t interested in a collapse of the talks. He’s trying to manoeuvre so that these negotiations continue alongside the military offensive.”

On a call on May 16, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, French President Emmanuel Macron and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer tried to make it clear to Mr Trump that Mr Putin has been stringing him along, according to one senior European official.

They are hoping that Mr Trump will realise that he risks looking like a loser if he forces a bad deal on Ukraine, the official added.

Mr Zelensky was also on the May 16 call, but he seemed despondent and exhausted by the week’s developments, the official said.

Mr Zelensky and his European allies believed they had a commitment from Mr Trump to hit the Kremlin with fresh sanctions if Mr Putin refused to observe a ceasefire starting from May 12, but that has not materialised. 

Ms Bota Iliyas, a senior analyst at Prism, a strategic intelligence firm in London, said: “Putin has been emboldened by his ability to make maximalist demands of Ukraine without experiencing any serious pushback from the Trump administration. Putin doesn’t trust Trump. But he will push Trump to align with Russia’s vision for a ceasefire.”

Russia on May 18 unleashed

one of the biggest drone barrages

against Ukraine since the start of the war as Mr Zelensky was engaged in a flurry of diplomacy on the sidelines of a mass in the Vatican to celebrate the enthronement of Pope Leo. 

Mr Zelensky met US Vice-President J.D. Vance for the first time since their infamous blow-up in the Oval Office in February. It was all smiles as the two men shook hands at the Vatican and later sat down with senior aides at the US ambassador’s residence. 

Mr Trump, meanwhile, held a follow-up call on May 18 with Mr Merz, Mr Starmer, Mr Macron and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.

The leaders discussed the need for an unconditional ceasefire and for Mr Putin to take the peace talks seriously, according to a spokeswoman for Mr Starmer. 

Mr Putin’s confidence about Russia’s prospects on the battlefield is at odds with Western assessments.

Having incurred massive casualties during more than three years of fighting, Russia lacks the capabilities to fulfil Mr Putin’s goals, according to European officials.

Mr Ben Barry, senior fellow for land warfare at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, said: “The probability of Russia achieving its objectives of conquering those four regions (Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson) by the end of this year is very low. If Ukrainian defence collapses, then it would be very easy to gain such an advantage, but at the moment, such a scenario seems very unlikely.”

That scepticism is also shared by many in the Russian military who are fighting in Ukraine, according to a person close to the Defence Ministry in Moscow. In particular, the person said, Ukraine’s drone forces have made it costly and ineffective for Russia to mount large-scale offensives. 

All the same, Russian negotiators set out Mr Putin’s hardline position in Istanbul on May 16 at the first face-to-face talks with Ukrainian officials in three years. They demanded that Ukrainian forces withdraw from the Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions that Russia claims as its territory but has never fully controlled.

The risk for Mr Putin is that he overplays his hand and prompts Mr Trump to make good on his threat of more sanctions to end what the US President has called the “bloodbath” in Ukraine.

US officials have privately signalled to their European counterparts that Mr Trump is considering allowing a sanctions Bill prepared by Republican Senator Lindsey Graham to progress if Russia does not budge, and he may tell Mr Putin he cannot prevent that, according to European officials familiar with the matter.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in an interview on CBS’ Face The Nation programme on May 18: “We’ve advised the Russians repeatedly now for almost two months that this was coming if no progress was made. So I think that’s just coming to fruition now.” 

Finnish President Alexander Stubb, who spent a day playing golf with Senator Graham and Mr Trump in March, said at the Tallinn conference that he is “carefully optimistic” that the senator will put forward his Bill next week.

“It depends on how the conversation goes with Putin and Trump on Monday,” Mr Stubb said. REUTERS, BLOOMBERG