{"id":421945,"date":"2025-03-20T11:44:15","date_gmt":"2025-03-20T10:44:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/2025\/03\/20\/trump-zelensky-putin-cessate-il-fuoco\/"},"modified":"2025-03-20T13:14:46","modified_gmt":"2025-03-20T12:14:46","slug":"ukraine-trump-and-zelensky-align-on-terms-for-a-truce","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/2025\/03\/20\/ukraine-trump-and-zelensky-align-on-terms-for-a-truce\/","title":{"rendered":"Ukraine: Trump and Zelensky align on terms for a truce"},"content":{"rendered":"

Brussels –\u00a0International diplomacy continues to race to try to end the Ukraine war<\/strong>. Over the past few days, Donald Trump<\/strong> spoke to his counterparts\u00a0Vladimir Putin<\/strong> and Volodymyr Zelensky<\/strong> on the phone. The US president is trying to bring both to the negotiating table and is preparing a meeting between the various negotiating teams in Saudi Arabia to define the technical aspects of the ceasefire.<\/strong> However,\u00a0for now, only Kyiv seems to be in line with Washington,<\/strong>\u00a0while\u00a0Moscow has not given any significant signs of openness.<\/p>\n

After the long phone call<\/a> with Vladimir Putin<\/strong> on Wednesday (the second in two months), Donald Trump<\/strong> picked up the phone again yesterday (March 19) to update Volodymyr Zelensky<\/strong> on where\u00a0negotiations stand and to renew US support<\/strong> for Ukraine. The last confrontation between the two —\u00a0in late February<\/a> in the Oval Office —\u00a0did not end well at all.<\/p>\n

On the other hand, yesterday’s was a “very good call,<\/strong>” according to the tycoon<\/i>, who signaled to have reached a shared understanding<\/a> with his counterpart\u00a0on a few firm points. First, on the continuation of supplies: Washington pledged to send Kyiv new antiaircraft batteries<\/strong> and not to discontinue (again) the sharing of intelligence<\/strong>, in effect contravening that one of the conditions set by the Kremlin<\/a> as a “fundamental condition” for agreeing to a truce.<\/p>\n

\"Volodymyr<\/a>
Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky (photo via Imagoeconomica)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Zelensky (who described the conversation as “perhaps the most productive one we’ve ever had<\/strong>“) then said he was willing to implement the proposal currently on the table – the partial ceasefire<\/strong> agreed to by Trump and Putin the day before yesterday, which essentially waters down the total truce discussed last week<\/a> in Jeddah by the Ukrainians and the US – even if\u00a0there have been several exchanges of airstrikes<\/strong> between the Federation and the former Soviet republic in recent hours.<\/p>\n

After hearing from his counterpart, the Ukrainian leader feels so optimistic that he claims that “under American leadership,” peace can be achieved “within this year.”<\/strong> Meanwhile, yesterday afternoon, the previously announced prisoner exchange <\/strong>occurred: 175 Russian soldiers against as many Ukrainians, plus 22 seriously wounded Kyiv soldiers.<\/p>\n

Another condition Putin appeared to set yesterday involved\u00a0Ukraine’s<\/strong>\u00a0recognition<\/strong>\u00a0of the occupied regions<\/strong> as formally part of the territory of the Federation<\/strong>. Zelensky deemed the request\u00a0inadmissible, claiming to have received support from Washington<\/strong> on this sensitive issue.<\/p>\n

The phone call\u00a0also revealed the willingness<\/a> to have\u00a0teams of experts<\/strong>\u00a0from the three countries gather\u00a0in Saudi Arabia for technical meetings on the ceasefire<\/strong>\u00a0implementation.<\/strong>\u00a0However,\u00a0whether the talks will take place as a trio or whether the US team will dialogue separately with those in Kyiv and Moscow is unclear. The bone of contention is reportedly\u00a0the definition of which facilities to spare<\/strong> from attacks: the US and Ukrainians would like to extend the agreement to energy and civilian infrastructure<\/strong> (ports, rail arteries, etc.), while the Russians\u00a0aim to limit the scope to energy infrastructure only.<\/p>\n

\"Vladimir<\/a>
Russian president, Vladimir Putin (photo via Imagoeconomica)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Moreover, the Ukrainian and US presidents agreed on an evolution of the infamous critical raw materials deal, which fell through\u00a0after the public argument at the White House. Trump suggested that the US may take responsibility<\/a>\u00a0for\u00a0managing Ukrainian nuclear power plants<\/strong>, starting with\u00a0Zaporizhzhia<\/strong>, the largest in the country and Europe, but which is currently under Russian occupation. “American ownership of those facilities could be the best protection for that infrastructure<\/strong>,” he added and would provide a solid security guarantee<\/strong> against new aggression from Moscow.<\/p>\n

The fate of the Ukrainian conflict remains high on the European political agenda. Due to a discussion on the issue, Zelensky is remotely connected to the summit that opened,<\/a> bringing the leaders of the 27 member states\u00a0together in Brussels just two weeks after\u00a0the extraordinary summit on March 6. At the same time, the Chiefs of Staff<\/strong> of the 30 countries that make up the coalition of the willing —\u00a0<\/strong>the initiative led by France and the United Kingdom to send a peacekeeping<\/i> force to the former Soviet republic<\/strong> as soon as there is a\u00a0truce\u00a0— are meeting in London.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After hearing from Putin, the White House occupant called Zelensky to coordinate Kyiv and Washington’s positions in the ongoing negotiations. They discussed military aid, negotiations in Saudi Arabia, and US control of Ukrainian nuclear power plants, among other things<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7876,"featured_media":421936,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"format":"standard","override":[{"template":"1","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_category":"1","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_prev_next_post":"1","show_popup_post":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_author_box":"0","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"0"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0","subtitle":""},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[25707],"tags":[26042,25802,26411,25907,26458,29533],"class_list":["post-421945","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world-politics","tag-infrastructure-energy-en"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/421945","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7876"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=421945"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/421945\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":421972,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/421945\/revisions\/421972"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/421936"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=421945"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=421945"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=421945"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}