US President Donald Trump says Russian President Vladimir Putin has agreed to hold talks to resolve Ukraine’s nearly three-year war.
Trump claimed that Putin consented to negotiations during a phone discussion on Wednesday.
It was the first publicly disclosed chat between the two leaders since Trump became president for the second time.
The US president described his phone discussion with Putin as “lengthy and highly productive” in a Truth Social post.
He went on to say that they agreed to have their “respective teams start negotiations immediately”.
“As we both agreed, we want to stop the millions of deaths taking place in the War with Russia/Ukraine,” Trump said.
“President Putin even used my very strong Campaign motto of, ‘COMMON SENSE.’ We both believe very strongly in it.”
The US negotiation team would consist of Marco Rubio, Secretary of State; John Ratcliffe, Director of the CIA; Michael Waltz, National Security Advisor; and Steve Witkoff, Ambassador and Special Envoy.
Trump stated that he thought “strongly” that the conversations would be doable, and that he and Putin had agreed to visit each other’s nations.
The Ukrainian administration has expressed concern over agreements that might rule out the US sending soldiers to Ukraine.