Many elements of Ukraine deal agreed, Trump says ahead of Putin call

US President Donald Trump on Monday said many elements of a final deal on Ukraine had been agreed to but much remained, ahead of a call with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday.

"I look very much forward to the call with President Putin," he wrote on Truth Social.

Trump has been trying to win Putin's support for a 30-day ceasefire proposal that Ukraine accepted last week, as both sides traded heavy aerial strikes early on Monday and Russia moved closer to ejecting Ukrainian forces from their months-old foothold in the western Russian region of Kursk.

"What's happening in Ukraine is not good, but we're going to see if we can work a peace agreement, a ceasefire and peace, and I think we'll be able to do it," Trump told reporters in Washington DC. He said Ukrainian soldiers in the Kursk region were "in deep trouble," surrounded by Russian soldiers.

Trump said his freeze on military aid to Ukraine earlier this month and his contentious Oval Office meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy may have helped persuade Kyiv. "A lot of people are being killed over there, and we had to get Ukraine to do the right thing," he said. "But I think they're doing the right thing right now."

Zelenskyy, in his nightly video address, accused Putin of prolonging the war, saying that when the Russian leader speaks to Trump, he will have been aware of the ceasefire proposal for a week. "This proposal could have been implemented long ago," he said. "Every day in wartime means human lives," he said.

Asked late on Sunday what concessions were being considered in ceasefire negotiations, Trump said: "We'll be talking about land. We'll be talking about power plants... We're already talking about that, dividing up certain assets."

He gave no details, but appeared to be referring to the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia facility in Ukraine, Europe's largest nuclear plant. Russia and Ukraine have accused each other of risking an accident at the plant with their actions.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told a regular briefing on Monday that Trump and Putin would discuss a power plant "on the border" of Russia and Ukraine. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov declined to comment on Trump's remarks about land and power plants.

The Kremlin said on Friday Putin had sent Trump a message about his ceasefire plan via US envoy Steve Witkoff, who held talks in Moscow, expressing "cautious optimism" that a deal could be reached to end the three-year conflict.

On Sunday, Witkoff, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and Trump's National Security Adviser, Mike Waltz, emphasized there were still challenges to be worked out before Russia agrees to a ceasefire, much less a final peaceful resolution to the war.