Name: US President Trump says Russia and Ukraine to ‘immediately’ start ceasefire negotiations | BBC News
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President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin have both been reacting positively after they spent two hours talking on the phone.

It comes as Washington continues to push to end the fighting in Ukraine.

Well, in the last hour, the American leader has posted on social media about the talks.

He said he believes the call went very well, adding that Russia and Ukraine will immediately start negotiations towards a ceasefire and, more importantly, bring an end to the war.

He went on, the tone and spirit of the conversation were excellent, before adding that Russia wants to do large-scale trade with the United States when this catastrophic bloodbath is over.

Let's go straight to our correspondent at the White House, Nomia Iqbal.

Nomia, just to be clear, first of all, we're talking here about negotiations about a ceasefire, not negotiations exactly about ending the war permanently.

And there's no breakthrough, I would say, in those peace negotiations.

And I would say that President Trump portrayed this conversation more positively than Vladimir Putin did.

He talked about possible future peace agreements.

Donald Trump said that he, well, I mean, he said that, as you mentioned there, the conversation was warm and friendly, but he focused a lot more on the economic benefits that might be in store for Russia and Ukraine when the war ends.

Essentially, what it sounds like is President Trump is saying it's up to both sides to work it out and essentially come up with the conditions for a negotiation, for a ceasefire and, ultimately, to end the war.

And so it's not really the U.S. walking away.

It sounds like they will continue to push both sides to work it out.

But, ultimately, he's letting them decide.

And that's where I think there is that huge challenge, because we know that there are things that Russia will not concede on and there are things that Ukraine will not concede on.

Mr. Trump did say that he has informed President Zelensky, as well as other key allies, including the European commissioner, about the phone conversation.

But, as I say, there was no major breakthrough in that conversation, and I don't think there was expected to be.

Well, the Russian leader has also been speaking about that conversation.

President Putin said it was, in his words, very informative and quite a frank talk.

We agreed with the president of the United States that Russia will propose and is ready to work with the Ukrainian side on a memorandum regarding a possible future peace treaty, outlining a number of positions, such as the principles of resolution, the timeline for a potential peace agreement, and so on, including the possible cessation of hostilities for a certain period in the event of reaching specific agreements.

A short time ago I spoke to our Russia editor, Steve Rosenberg, in Moscow, and he gave us his reaction to what we have heard about the Russian side of this phone call.

Remember, America, European leaders, and Ukraine have been pushing Russia to sign up to a 30-day unconditional ceasefire.

Russia has been resisting that all along, and still, after this conversation, there's no talk about a ceasefire now.

However, Mr Putin's press secretary, Dmitry Peskov, after Vladimir Putin's comments, said, I think in an attempt to flatter Donald Trump, talked about how Russia saw America as a neutral party now, and basically blamed Europe for wanting the war to continue, trying to drive a wedge between America and Europe, and trying to flatter Donald Trump.

Well, we're joined now by Daniel Byman, who is the director of the Warfare Irregular Threats and Terrorism Programme at the think tank, the Centre for Strategic and International Studies.

Daniel, thank you very much for joining us on BBC News to talk about this developing story.

From what you've heard, the readout from Russia and the US, what are your thoughts?

There's a lot of very vague words and promises.

So there seems to be an effort to work toward a ceasefire.

There could be some sort of memorandum, but any of the content, any of the principles remains very unclear.

And given how far apart the two parties were before the phone calls, I'm not sure how much closer we are now, despite all the rhetoric.

Yeah, one of my Russian-speaking colleagues here in the newsroom sent me a message saying that there is a saying in the Russian language, we negotiate to negotiate.

I mean, on hopes for a ceasefire, this seems to be, you know, stretching out with no specific timeframe at the moment, yet we know that President Trump is very impatient.

So where do you think that's going to lead to?

So one of Russia's hopes is that President Trump will get tired of the whole thing and simply say that the United States is not going to be involved anymore.

And this would be an end of economic aid, an end of military aid to Ukraine.

So I think Putin probably calculates that inaction and delay on his part is going to help Russia's position in the long term, especially if Russia is not the one blamed for any problems.

And we're waiting to hear still from President Zelensky.

It's the obvious person that we're still waiting to hear from after these these conversations, these discussions, this phone call between President Trump and President Putin.

Militarily, Daniel, what position are Ukraine and Russia in right now with regards to prosecuting this war, continuing this war?

So Russia has been making progress against Ukraine in the last 10 months, but it's very slow, really incremental progress at best.

So although many people describe Russia as having the upper hand, and that's probably true, the actual military advantage it's gained has been quite slight.

So we're not likely to see dramatic changes on the battlefield in the coming months, unless, of course, we see an abandonment of Ukraine by its allies, in which case Ukraine runs out of ammunition and in general may suffer a catastrophic loss.

So are you saying at the moment Russia doesn't see any strategic interest in a ceasefire?

Russia believes that Ukraine's going to crumble if it keeps hitting it, and especially if the United States and Europe abandon it.

So a ceasefire, especially a long term one, is probably not in Russia's interest, according to how Putin defines it.

OK, Daniel Byman from the Center for Strategic and International Studies, good to get your assessment of this developing news.