Trump joins second crisis call with Zelenskyy, European leaders as Putin demands Ukraine retreat from four regions

European leaders—including Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, and Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk—held a second phone call with US President Donald Trump on Friday, as fragile peace negotiations between Ukraine and Russia stalled over the Kremlin’s territorial demands.

The renewed outreach follows a joint summit in Kyiv on 10 May, where the same four leaders met with Zelenskyy and initiated the first joint call with President Trump. That meeting concluded with a demand for a 30-day ceasefire starting 12 May, and a coordinated warning of expanded sanctions if Russia failed to engage meaningfully.

Russia’s ceasefire conditions “detached from reality“

Speaking from Tirana, where he was attending a regional summit, Prime Minister Starmer confirmed a follow-up call.

“We just had a meeting with President Zelenskyy and then a phone call with President Trump to discuss the developments in the negotiations today,” he said. “The Russian position is clearly unacceptable—and not for the first time.”

Prisoner swap deal agreed, but talks stall in Istanbul

The call followed a rare face-to-face meeting between Russian and Ukrainian delegations in Istanbul—the first in over three years. That two-hour session led to a major 1,000-for-1,000 prisoner exchange agreement, though no date was made public. Ukraine’s Defense Minister Rustem Umerov, who led Kyiv’s delegation, confirmed the deal.

Russian presidential aide Vladimir Medinsky welcomed the outcome and acknowledged Ukraine’s request for a presidential-level meeting. However, according to Ukrainian diplomatic sources, the broader negotiations faltered when Russia allegedly demanded that Ukraine withdraw from Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia—regions partially occupied by Russian forces but claimed by Moscow since 2022.

A source told Reuters the proposals were “detached from reality,” while a Kyiv official told The Telegraph that the Kremlin considered Ukrainian withdrawal from those territories a “minimum requirement” for a ceasefire.