President Trump said he had “a very good telephone call” with President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine on Wednesday to discuss next steps after the American leader’s discussion with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia.
In a social media post, Mr. Trump said the call lasted about an hour and that Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Michael Waltz, the national security adviser, would soon give a more complete picture of what was discussed.
But his initial tone was notably positive and lacked the sharp criticisms he has levied against the Ukrainian leader in recent weeks, including during their heated Oval Office confrontation last month.
“Much of the discussion was based on the call made yesterday with Mr. Putin in order to align both Russia and Ukraine in terms of their requests and needs,” Mr. Trump wrote in his post Wednesday. “We are very much on track.”
Mr. Zelensky had said he expected Mr. Trump to brief him on the American president’s conversation a day earlier with Mr. Putin, in which the Russian leader agreed to a limited cease-fire. That proposal, which would halt attacks on Ukrainian energy infrastructure, fell short of a 30-day unconditional truce that Kyiv had agreed to at Washington’s urging.
On Wednesday, Mr. Zelensky appeared open to the latest offer of a limited cease-fire, but said he thought that such a truce would need U.S. monitoring to work.
“Just the assertion and the word of Putin that he will not strike energy sites is too little,” Mr. Zelensky said. “War has made us practical people.”
Ukraine would prepare a list of sites that would need to be protected — and if monitoring confirmed that “Russia doesn’t strike our objects, we will not strike theirs,” he told a news conference in Helsinki alongside Finland’s president, Alexander Stubb.
Underscoring the lack of trust between Ukraine and Russia, the two countries traded accusations on Wednesday about attacks against each others’ energy infrastructure.
Mr. Zelensky has characterized some of the conditions Mr. Putin has set for a broader cease-fire — such as a demand for a complete cessation of foreign military and intelligence aid to Ukraine — as an attempt to stall for time so that Russia can improve its forces’ positions on the battlefield and its negotiating hand.
The Ukrainian president reiterated that point after the call between Mr. Putin and Mr. Trump, saying that in setting conditions, Russia had made clear it was unwilling to end the war.
Mr. Zelensky has toed a careful line with the White House since a disastrous Feb. 28 meeting in the Oval Office, where he was accused by Mr. Trump and Vice President JD Vance of not being sufficiently grateful for U.S. support. The Trump administration temporarily suspended all military assistance and intelligence sharing with Ukraine in the aftermath of the meeting — and Mr. Zelensky has since sought to smooth over relations.
Ukraine’s European allies have cautiously welcomed any moves toward a cease-fire, while pledging further support for Kyiv and echoing concerns about Russia’s conditions.
“It’s a yes or a no. No buts, no conditions,” Mr. Stubb, Finland’s president, told the news conference on Wednesday. “Ukraine accepted a cease-fire without any form of conditions. If Russia refuses to agree, we need to increase our efforts to strengthen Ukraine and to ratchet up pressure on Russia.”
The 30-day cease-fire proposal that Ukraine had agreed to after talks with U.S. officials in Saudi Arabia was more extensive. It would have applied to land, air and sea — the first cessation of hostilities since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine more than three years ago. That monthlong truce, Mr. Zelensky has said, was meant to give time for fuller negotiations about a longer-term peace.
On Wednesday, he reiterated that Ukraine would have “red lines” going into any such talks.
“For us, a red line is the recognition of Ukraine’s temporarily occupied territories as Russian,” he said. “We will not agree to that.”
Anastasia Kuznietsova and Johanna Lemola contributed reporting.
