US President Donald Trump has said that a resolution to the more than four-year-old war in Ukraine is “getting closer than people realise” and that he will talk about Ukraine during talks in Türkiye this week at a NATO summit.
Trump made his remarks on Monday after speaking at the weekend with both Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
Russia launched overnight missile and drone attacks on Kiev and the surrounding region, killing at least 28 people.
In Moscow, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said he believed the US position on how to resolve the conflict remained unchanged.
But Zelenskyy, interviewed by the Financial Times, said he believed the US president was viewing the conflict in a new light in view of recent Ukrainian successes.
“This is one that I think we’re getting much closer than people realise. And President Putin wants it to end. I will tell you that very strongly,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office.
Trump said he had held a “good call” with Putin on the Fourth of July holiday, a conversation a Kremlin aide said lasted 85 minutes and was marked by the US president offering to help find a way to move towards peace.
“And President Zelenskyy actually wants it to end now. And we’re going to be going to NATO, and we’re going to be talking about it, and I think we’re going to get it,” he said. “I think we’re going to get it ended. It’s been a terrible situation.”
Trump is scheduled to meet Zelenskyy on Wednesday on the sidelines of the NATO summit in Ankara, and a US official said the idea of the talks was to make a renewed push to end the war.
The same official said Trump would likely follow up with Putin after talking to Zelenskyy.
