Trump, Putin to discuss Russia-Ukraine war on Tuesday

The U.S. president will speak with the Russian leader on Tuesday to attempt to broker an end to the Russia-Ukraine war, he told reporters aboard Air Force One Sunday night. A lot of work on the proposed deal was done over the weekend, he said. Land and other assets are possible points of negotiation, he said. A Kremlin spokesman on Monday confirmed the leaders’ scheduled talk to a Russian state media agency.

Putin last week said he was open to a 30-day ceasefire agreement put forward by the United States, but the plan needed further negotiation. Ukraine agreed to the initial plan after meeting with U.S. negotiators in Saudi Arabia. The proposal calls for a halt to fighting on all fronts and immediate peace talks. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Sunday slammed Putin for allowing the war to continue for another week due to his slow response.

Are Ukrainian soldiers surrounded in the Kursk border region? Both Russian state media and Trump recently claimed that a significant portion of Ukraine’s troops were surrounded in Kursk after Russian forces retook several towns in the region. But Ukraine’s general staff of the armed forces on Facebook Friday denied that any encirclement of Ukrainian forces had taken place, and over the weekend continued to report Russian airstrikes and ongoing fighting in the area.

What else happened over the weekend? Trump announced he was appointing General Keith Kellogg as special envoy to Ukraine, citing Kellogg’s good working relationship with Zelenskyy.