{"id":673,"date":"2025-03-17T09:13:24","date_gmt":"2025-03-17T09:13:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/2025\/03\/17\/trump-says-he-and-putin-will-discuss-land-and-powerplants-in-ukraine-ceasefire-talks-the-guardian\/"},"modified":"2025-03-17T09:13:24","modified_gmt":"2025-03-17T09:13:24","slug":"trump-says-he-and-putin-will-discuss-land-and-powerplants-in-ukraine-ceasefire-talks-the-guardian","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/2025\/03\/17\/trump-says-he-and-putin-will-discuss-land-and-powerplants-in-ukraine-ceasefire-talks-the-guardian\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump says he and Putin will discuss land and powerplants in Ukraine ceasefire talks – The Guardian"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

US President Donald Trump said he plans to discuss ending the war in Ukraine with Russian President Vladimir Putin<\/a> on Tuesday and that negotiators had already discussed \u201cdividing up certain assets\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ll be speaking to President Putin on Tuesday. A lot of work\u2019s been done over the weekend,\u201d Trump told reporters on Air Force One during a late flight back to the Washington area from Florida.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want to see if we can bring that war to an end. Maybe we can, maybe we can\u2019t, but I think we have a very good chance,\u201d Trump said.<\/p>\n

<\/gu-island><\/figure>\n

Trump is trying to win Putin\u2019s support<\/a> for a 30-day ceasefire proposal that Ukraine accepted last week, as both sides continued trading heavy aerial strikes through the weekend and Russia moved closer to ejecting Ukrainian forces from their months-old foothold in the western Russian region of Kursk.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe will be talking about land. We will be talking about power plants,\u201d Trump said, when asked about concessions. \u201cI think we have a lot of it already discussed very much by both sides, Ukraine<\/a> and Russia. We are already talking about that, dividing up certain assets.\u201d<\/p>\n

The comments came hours after his special envoy, Steve Witkoff, said that the Russian president \u201caccepts the philosophy\u201d<\/a> of Trump\u2019s ceasefire and peace terms.<\/p>\n

Witkoff told CNN that discussions with Putin over several hours last week had been \u201cpositive\u201d and \u201csolution-based\u201d.<\/p>\n

But he declined to confirm when asked whether Putin\u2019s demands included the surrender of Ukrainian forces in Kursk, international recognition of Ukrainian territory seized by Russia<\/a> as Russian, limits on Ukraine\u2019s ability to mobilise, a halt to western military aid, and a ban on foreign peacekeepers.<\/p>\n

Putin said on Thursday that he supported a truce but outlined numerous details that need to be negotiated before the deal can be completed.<\/p>\n

Moscow has among other things firmly opposed the deployment of European troops to provide security guarantees for Ukraine after any eventual ceasefire.<\/p>\n

On Sunday, French President Emmanuel Macron said Russia\u2019s permission was not needed<\/a>, noting that Ukraine was a sovereign state. \u201cIf Ukraine requests allied forces to be on its territory, it is not up to Russia<\/a> to accept or reject them,\u201d he said in remarks quoted by several French newspapers.<\/p>\n

Later on Sunday Russia\u2019s deputy foreign minister Alexander Grushko said that any long-lasting peace treaty on Ukraine must meet Moscow\u2019s demands.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe will demand that ironclad security guarantees become part of this agreement,\u201d Izvestia cited Grushko as saying. \u201cPart of these guarantees should be the neutral status of Ukraine, the refusal of Nato countries to accept it into the alliance.\u201d<\/p>\n

Regarding the possibility of European troops in Ukraine, he said \u201cIt does not matter under what label Nato contingents were to be deployed on Ukrainian territory: be it the European Union, Nato, or in a national capacity \u2026 If they appear there, it means that they are deployed in the conflict zone with all the consequences for these contingents as parties to the conflict.<\/p>\n

Putin has said his military incursion into Ukraine was because Nato\u2019s creeping expansion threatened Russia\u2019s security. He has demanded that Ukraine drop its Nato ambitions, that Russia keeps control of all Ukrainian territory seized, and that the size of the Ukrainian army be limited.<\/p>\n

He also wants western sanctions eased and a presidential election in Ukraine, which Kyiv says is premature while martial law is in force.<\/p>\n

Also on Sunday, Moscow said that US secretary of state Marco Rubio had called his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov to discuss \u201cconcrete aspects of the implementation of understandings\u201d agreed at a US-Russia summit in Saudi Arabia last month.<\/p>\n

February\u2019s Riyadh gathering was the first high-level meeting between the United States and Russia since Moscow launched its invasion in February 2022.<\/p>\n

\u201cSergei Lavrov and Marco Rubio agreed to remain in contact,\u201d the Russian foreign ministry said, with no mention of the US-suggested ceasefire.<\/p>\n

State department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce said on Saturday that the pair had \u201cdiscussed the next steps\u201d on Ukraine, and \u201cagreed to continue working towards restoring communication between the United States and Russia\u201d.<\/p>\n

The Lavrov-Rubio call came hours after the UK hosted a virtual summit on Ukraine, at which prime minister Keir Starmer accused Putin of \u201cdragging his feet\u201d<\/a> on the ceasefire.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe \u2018yes, but\u2019 from Russia is not good enough,\u201d Starmer said, calling for a stop to the \u201cbarbaric attacks on Ukraine once and for all\u201d.<\/p>\n

The diplomatic developments came as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he had replaced the chief of general staff of the armed forces.<\/p>\n

According to a communique, Anatoliy Bargylevych has been replaced by Andriy Gnatov, who \u201chas been tasked with increasing the efficiency of the management.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHe is a combat guy,\u201d Zelenskyy said of Gnatov. \u201cHis task is to bring more combat experience, the experience of our brigades in planning operations, defensive and offensive, as well as more active development of the corps system,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

The Ukrainian military, which has grown since mobilising to repel Russia\u2019s February 2022 invasion, is in the process of reorganising its army corps to improve coordination.<\/p>\n

Defence minister Rustem Umerov said on his Facebook page: \u201cWe are systematically transforming the Armed Forces of Ukraine to enhance their combat effectiveness.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis involves restructuring the command system and implementing clear standards.\u201d Gnatov, he said, had \u201cmore than 27 years of military experience\u201d.<\/p>\n

Bargylevych has been appointed as the chief inspector of the defence ministry, he added.<\/p>\n

Reuters and Agence France-Presse contributed to this report<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

US President Donald Trump said he plans to discuss ending the war in Ukraine with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday and that negotiators had already discussed \u201cdividing up certain assets\u201d. \u201cI\u2019ll be speaking to President Putin on Tuesday. A lot of work\u2019s been done over the weekend,\u201d Trump told reporters on Air Force One […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":674,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-673","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/673","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=673"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/673\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/674"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=673"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=673"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=673"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}