Sawt Falasteen - Trump calls Putin in push for Ukraine ceasefire

Trump is pinning his hopes on a fresh personal appeal to Putin to get the Kremlin leader to agree to a 30-day unconditional ceasefire with Kyiv.

A White House official told AFP on condition of anonymity that the call had started.

But the White House warned that Trump was "weary and frustrated" with the slow progress in resolving the conflict. The Kremlin said the call between the Russian and US leaders was "important."

Trump is also set to speak to Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky and NATO officials during the day as he scrambles to find a solution to the three-year-old war.

The 78-year-old Republican vowed during his US election campaign to halt the Ukraine war within 24 hours of taking office, but his diplomatic efforts have so far yielded little progress.

Vice President JD Vance reiterated that Trump was losing patience.

"There's a bit of an impasse here, and I think the president's going to say to President Putin, look, are you serious?" Vance told reporters as he left Rome, where he met both Pope Leo XIV and Zelensky.

"If Russia is not willing to do that, then we're eventually just going have to say, this is not our war."

- 'Weary and frustrated' -

Trump has directed much of his frustration towards Ukraine -- including during a blazing Oval Office row with Zelensky in February -- while abstaining from extensively criticizing Putin.

The White House declined to take sides Monday, with Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt saying the president has "grown weary and frustrated with both sides."

Trump still hoped to meet Putin, she added, after the US president said that face-to-face talks were the only way to end the conflict.

Trump had held out the possibility of joining Russia-Ukraine peace talks in Istanbul last week if there was a chance of meeting Putin, but the Russian leader was a no-show.

Moscow insisted Monday it would prefer to end the conflict through diplomacy.

"It is preferable to achieve our goals through political and diplomatic means, of course," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told state media, adding that Russia "highly valued" Washington's attempts to end the fighting.

Zelensky refreshed his push for a full ceasefire ahead of the call.

"Ukraine insists on the need for a full and unconditional ceasefire in order to save human lives and to establish the necessary foundation for diplomacy," he said on social media.

- 'Bloodbath' -

The Istanbul talks were the first direct negotiations between the sides for three years, with US officials also attending. But the meetings ended without a commitment to a ceasefire.

Both sides traded insults, with Ukraine accusing Moscow of sending a "dummy" delegation of low-ranking officials.

After the negotiations, Trump announced that he would speak by phone with Putin in a bid to end the "BLOODBATH" in Ukraine, which has destroyed large swathes of the country and displaced millions of people.

Ukraine's Western allies have since accused Putin of ignoring calls for a truce and pushed for fresh sanctions against Russia.

The leaders of Britain, France, Germany and Italy also spoke with Trump on Sunday.

"The leaders discussed the need for an unconditional ceasefire and for President Putin to take peace talks seriously," said a spokesman for British Prime Minister Keir Starmer.

On the ground, the Russian army continued its attacks.

Moscow claimed its forces had captured two villages in Ukraine's eastern Sumy and Donetsk regions. Russia also fired 112 drones on Ukraine overnight, 76 of which were repelled, the Ukrainian air force said.

In an interview with Russian state TV broadcast on Sunday, Putin said that Moscow's aim was to "eliminate the causes that triggered this crisis."

Russia's references to the "root causes" of the conflict typically refer to grievances it used to justify the invasion, including to "de-Nazify" and demilitarise Ukraine, protect Russian speakers in the country's east and push back against NATO expansion.

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J.AbuHassan--SF-PST