Trump called Zelenski and Putin

US President Donald Trump called his Ukrainian and Russian counterparts on Monday, Volodimir Zelenski, respectively Vladimir Putin, in his efforts to find a way to resolve the conflict in Ukraine.

The White House only confirmed that the discussion with the Russian president is ongoing and did not provide details about the phone call with Zelenski, which, according to CNN, took place first.

The Ukrainian television station TSN has confirmed that the telephone discussion between Donald Trump and Volodimir Zelenski preceded the one with Putin, even though the White House had announced that the US president would call his Ukrainian counterpart after the Russian leader.

The telephone conversation for more than two hours with Donald Trump has failed to convince Russian President Vladimir Putin to have an immediate cessation in Ukraine, The Moscow Times reports on Monday evening.

Trump has made the US position known about the cessation of fire and armistice, but Russia will be ready for them only after reaching appropriate agreements, Putin said, talking to journalists after the telephone discussion carried out during the afternoon with the US president. « The main thing for us is to eliminate the deep causes of this crisis, » he stressed.

For now, Russia is ready to collaborate with the Ukrainian side at a memorandum on a possible future peace treaty ‘. This will include the definition of ‘a number of positions, such as the principles of settlement, the terms for the possible conclusion of a peace agreement, etc.’, Putin listed.

This memorandum, according to the Russian president, could also include ‘a possible armistice for a certain period of time, if it will reach appropriate agreements’.

Putin also said that Trump’s ‘satisfied’ for the support of the US to resume direct negotiations between Russia and Ukraine ‘and added that the conversation with him was very significant and very sincere’.

Resuming negotiations with Ukraine last Friday in Istanbul, after a three -year break, shows that « we are on the right path, » Putin said, quoted by international press agencies. « Contacts between participants in the discussions in Istanbul have been resumed and this allows us to assume that, in general, we are on the right track, » he added.

Vladimir Putin refuses to make concessions because he is confident in the superiority of his forces on the Ukraine front, sources close to the Kremlin for Bloomberg said.

According to them, the Russian president is expected that by the end of the year the army can conquer the entire territory of four Ukrainian regions -Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporojie and Herson -, within the limits of their administrative borders.

The Russian delegation demanded, during the negotiations in Istanbul on Friday, that Kiev would surrender to Russia these territories, including the areas that the Russian army does not control.

According to sources Reuters and The Economist, the Russian delegation led by Vladimir Medinski, Putin’s counselor, threatened that Russia could occupy two more regions-Kharkov and Sumî-claiming that Moscow is ready to fight for decades-as he did with Sweden during Peter the Great.