Trump reveals the time of his next phone call with Putin

US President Donald Trump has announced that he plans to have a phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin on March 18 to discuss prospects for reaching a peace deal in the Ukraine conflict.

According to AP news agency, when speaking to reporters on Air Force One on March 16 (local time), President Trump said he would talk to his Russian counterpart Putin on March 18.

“We’ll see if we have something to announce, maybe on March 18th. I’ll be speaking to President Putin on March 18th. A lot of work was done over the weekend. We want to see if we can end that war. We’ll talk about territory. We’ll talk about power plants,” Trump said.

Earlier, US special envoy Steve Witkoff announced that Mr Trump and Mr Putin were expected to speak by phone this week to discuss efforts to establish a ceasefire in the Ukraine conflict. Mr Witkoff, who recently met Mr Putin in Moscow, described the discussions as “positive” and said both sides were now “much closer” in negotiations.

“I expect to have a call with both presidents this week, and we are also continuing to engage, and have conversations, with the Ukrainians,” Witkoff said.

On March 15, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio had a separate phone call with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, in which the two top diplomats discussed next steps to restore direct communication between the two countries.

The first official phone call between the leaders of Russia and the United States in many years took place on February 12, 2025. Then, on February 18, high-level talks were held in Saudi Arabia, where Washington and Moscow agreed to set up working groups to resolve the Ukraine conflict, restore the functioning of embassies, and address other bilateral issues. Since then, additional discussions have been held in Istanbul, focusing on the issue of diplomatic funding and Moscow's proposal to restore direct flights.

Following talks in Jeddah last week, Ukraine agreed to a 30-day ceasefire. Witkoff then traveled to Moscow on March 13 to brief Putin on the details of the proposal.

The Russian president welcomed the ceasefire in principle but stressed that a number of important issues needed to be resolved first, including the fate of Ukrainian soldiers besieged in Russia's Kursk region.

Although details of the meeting between Mr. Witkoff and Mr. Putin have not been made public, Mr. Trump has hinted at positive developments, claiming that the White House had received “some pretty good news” about the ceasefire effort and that meetings between the United States and Russia in recent days had been “very productive.”