Zelenskiy agrees to partial ceasefire after call with Trump
- 19 March, 11:24
Ukrainian President Voldodymyr Zelenskiy on Wednesday agreed to a partial ceasefire with Russia on energy infrastructure following a phone call with US President Donald Trump. Russian President Vladimir Putin had signed on to the ceasefire involving energy infrastructure a day earlier.
Zelenskiy described Wednesday’s phone call that lasted around an hour as “positive, very substantial and frank”. His readout of the call thanked Trump several times, and said he had signed on to the ceasefire plan. “We instructed our teams to resolve technical issues related to implementing and expanding the partial ceasefire,” Zelenskiy wrote on Telegram app after the call. The White House said Trump had promised to help with a Ukrainian request to source more air defence batteries for Kyiv.
This was the first phone call between the two leaders after the disastrous Oval Office meeting in which Trump had berated Zelenskiy and accused him of not being ready for peace. The White House meeting marked a low point in US-Ukrainian relations.
Posting on his Truth Social, Trump described his talk with Zelenskiy as a “very good telephone call”. “Much of the discussion was based on the call made yesterday with President Putin in order to align both Russia and Ukraine in terms of their requests and needs. We are very much on track,” Trump wrote.
