Axios: Trump asked Putin to make proposal Ukraine and Europe can agree to

During a telephone conversation with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and European leaders, US President Donald Trump has said he asked Russian ruler Vladimir Putin to make a proposal that Ukraine and Europeans would not reject outright.

Source: Axios, citing sources

Details: Trump called Zelenskyy after the conversation with Putin. The leaders of Germany, France, Italy, Finland and the European Commission also joined the call.

Trump informed the leaders that Putin had agreed to immediately begin direct negotiations on a ceasefire. A source who participated in the conversation said there were a few seconds of surprised silence.

Zelenskyy then noted that Putin had previously agreed to negotiations and that the first round of ceasefire talks took place on Friday 16 May in Istanbul. Trump did not respond directly, the sources said.

The sources said Zelenskyy and several other leaders who participated in the conversation told Trump that it was his idea to start peace talks with an immediate 30-day ceasefire.

A White House official told Axios that Trump never agreed that a ceasefire should be a precondition for talks and never said that Zelenskyy could decide the terms of the negotiations.

Trump told the leaders that Putin would present a peace memorandum with his terms for a ceasefire and an end to the war.

A source who participated in the conversation said that Trump told Zelenskyy and European leaders that he had asked Putin to present "something people [Ukraine and the Europeans – ed.] can agree to", not a proposal that would be immediately rejected.

The sources noted that Zelenskyy said previous rounds of negotiations with Putin, including those that took place last week, had yielded no results and stressed that if Trump did not apply pressure, Putin would not back down.

A White House representative said that for months, Russia had refused to present a document outlining its vision for ending the war, and that Putin's agreement to do so was a significant step forward.

The sources said the leaders who participated in the phone call seemed surprised that Trump was relatively satisfied with what he heard from Putin and had presented it as a new development, even though the Russian leader, by all accounts, had not changed his position at all.

Background:

• US Secretary of State Marco Rubio rejected criticism of the Trump administration's policy towards Ukraine and claimed that Trump had not made any concessions to Russia.
• After his conversation with Putin on 19 May, Trump said that Ukraine and Russia would "immediately" begin negotiations on a ceasefire.
• In a social media post, the US president did not mention the administration's demand for an unconditional ceasefire, which Putin has openly rejected, nor did he mention potential sanctions if Moscow refused to make concessions.

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