Trump tells Zelenskyy he wants war over in a month as trilateral talks scheduled for March

Donald Trump responded to Zelenskyy’s hope for an end to the war this year with a far tighter deadline — one month — during a call that three sources described as “very friendly and positive,” Axios reports.
Zelenskyy trump
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy during a meeting with US President Donald Trump at the World Economic Forum in Davos on 22 January 2026. Source: president.gov.ua
Trump tells Zelenskyy he wants war over in a month as trilateral talks scheduled for March

US President Donald Trump told Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy during a phone call on Wednesday that he wants the war with Russia to end within a month, Axios reports, citing three sources with knowledge of the conversation.

"The war has been going on for far too long and I would like the war to end in a month," Trump told Zelenskyy, according to one of the sources.

The 30-minute call — the first conversation between the two leaders since their meeting in Davos at the end of January — took place one day after the fourth anniversary of Russia's full-scale invasion and one day before Trump's envoys Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff are set to meet Zelenskyy's negotiating team in Geneva on 26 February.

Kushner and Witkoff also participated in Wednesday's call, according to both Axios and a readout from Zelenskyy's office.

All three sources described the call as "very friendly and positive," Axios reports. A Ukrainian official and another source said Zelenskyy thanked Trump for his support and told him that "only Trump can get Putin to stop the war." Zelenskyy expressed hope the war would finish this year — to which Trump responded with his one-month timeline.

A key topic was a possible trilateral leaders' summit between Zelenskyy, Trump, and Russian President Vladimir Putin. Zelenskyy told Axios last week that the remaining gaps on the territorial issue can be bridged only through direct talks at the leaders' level.

Trump told Zelenskyy he would work on making the summit happen if the next meeting between US, Russian, and Ukrainian negotiators, planned for early March, produces more progress, according to Axios.

"We expect this meeting to create an opportunity to move talks to the leaders' level. President Trump supports this sequence of steps. This is the only way to resolve all the complex and sensitive issues and finally end the war," Zelenskyy wrote on X following the call.

A Ukrainian official told Axios that Trump also reiterated his willingness to provide Ukraine with significant US security guarantees as part of a potential peace deal.

Zelenskyy's office noted separately that the president thanked Trump for the PURL program, saying this winter has been Ukraine's hardest and that missiles for air defense systems purchased from the US "help a great deal in getting through all these challenges and protecting lives."

Russian envoy Kirill Dmitriev may also be in Geneva on 26 February for separate talks with the US envoys, a source told Axios. The White House did not respond to Axios's request for comment.

US National Security Advisor JD Vance said separately that the administration has been engaged in "very, very deliberate negotiations with both the Russians and the Ukrainians" and that Trump "has set the entire team to try to bring the killing to a close."

"It's been difficult, but I think we're making progress," Vance said.

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