By Steve Holland and Jasper Ward
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. President Donald Trump said on Saturday he will speak with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday to discuss stopping the war in Ukraine, days after the first face-to-face talks in three years between Russia and Ukraine took place in Istanbul.
Trump had offered to travel to Turkey for the talks while in the Gulf last week if Putin would also attend, but Putin declined to take him up on the offer.
The president has been pressuring Putin and Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to agree to a ceasefire in the three-year-old war.
Trump said in a Truth Social post that his call with Putin will be on Monday at 10 a.m. Eastern (1400 GMT).
“THE SUBJECTS OF THE CALL WILL BE, STOPPING THE ‘BLOODBATH’ THAT IS KILLING, ON AVERAGE, MORE THAN 5000 RUSSIAN AND UKRAINIAN SOLDIERS A WEEK, AND TRADE,” he said.
Trump said he would speak with Zelenskiy and various members of NATO afterwards.
“Hopefully it will be a productive day, a ceasefire will take place, and this very violent war, a war that should have never happened, will end,” he wrote.
Russia has shown little inclination to make concessions in the Ukraine conflict.
Russian negotiators at the Istanbul peace talks on Friday demanded Ukraine pull its troops out of all Ukrainian regions claimed by Moscow before they would agree to a ceasefire, a senior Ukrainian official familiar with the talks told Reuters.
(Reporting by Jasper Ward and Steve Holland; Editing by Frank McGurty and Rod Nickel)
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