Ukraine updates: Expectations excessive forward of Trump-Putin name

A telephone call between US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin has been ongoing since 10 a.m. Washington time (1400 UTC), according to a White House official.

“The call is going well, and still in progress,” Dan Scavino, White House deputy chief of staff, wrote in a post on social media platform X. 

The Kremlin earlier said that the call would last as long as was deemed necessary.

US President Donald Trump is scheduled to speak with Russia’s Vladimir Putin today. The Russian leader has not yet agreed to a US-backed ceasefire proposal.

In Ukraine, soldiers and civilians alike are anxiously awaiting his response.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer spoke to US President Donald Trump ahead of his expected meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“The prime minister updated the president on his coalition of the willing call … He reiterated that all must work together to put Ukraine in the strongest possible position to secure a just and lasting peace,” a spokesperson for Starmer said on Tuesday afternoon.

The call took place late on Monday.

Starmer has been drumming up support among global leaders in a “coalition of the willing” and has sought concrete commitments to increase pressure on Russian President Vladimir Putin to the war in Ukraine.

German Chancellor-in-waiting, Friedrich Merz, said that €3 billion ($3.3 billion) in additional aid for Ukraine could be released by Friday.

Merz made his comments at a meeting of the parliamentary group of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and its Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union (CSU) in Berlin on Tuesday morning, German news agency DPA reported, citing participants at the meeting.

Germany’s Bundestag is on Tuesday voting over whether to relax fiscal rules to ease Germany’s long-standing debt brake.

The money for Ukraine would flow after the vote in the lower house of parliament.

Merz’s center-right CDU, Social Democrats (SPD) and Greens are optimistic that the necessary two-thirds majority will be achieved in Tuesday’s vote.

Europe’s satellite operator Eutelsat said it has “perfect coverage” over Ukraine, amid concern that Elon Musk‘s Starlink could possibly pull the plug on service in Ukraine.

Musk has called his satellite-internet service the “backbone of the Ukrainian army” fighting Russia and said “their entire front line would collapse if I turned it off.”

Eutelsat’s CEO Eva Berneke said the world’s second-largest low-orbit operator was “the only alternative” and despite “less capacity” than Starlink for now, had “perfect coverage” over Ukraine.

“I don’t think that’s a big problem… for important military requirements, the capacity we have today in Ukraine is more than enough,” AFP news agency quoted Berneke as saying.

Berneke said that her company needs fewer satellites to provide the same capacity, due to its orbiters’ greater distance from the Earth’s surface, she added.

Another concern, however, is the dependency on Musk’s SpaceX to launch new satellites.

SpaceX “provides around 90% of capacity in the launch market”, Berneke noted, adding that Eutelsat was “very likely” to remain a customer.

The defense ministers of Poland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, have announced plans to withdraw from the Ottawa treaty banning anti-personnel mines amid security concerns since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

“Military threats to NATO Member States bordering Russia and Belarus have significantly increased,” the ministers said in a statement.

“In the current security environment it is paramount to provide our defence forces flexibility and freedom of choice to potentially use new weapons systems and solutions to bolster the defence of the Alliance’s vulnerable Eastern flank,” the ministers said.

Last week, the countries, along with Finland, said they were “close” to an agreement on withdrawing from the treaty.

The treaty — signed by more than 160 countries and territories, including Ukraine, but not by the United States or Russia — bans signatories from acquiring, producing, stockpiling or using anti-personnel mines.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said Ukraine was not an impediment to a peace agreement with Russia and spoke of lasting peace under the leadership of US President Donald Trump.

“We are not the obstacle to achieving peace. … We really expect from [the] Russian side [an] unconditional yes for ceasefire,” Sybiha said during a conference in New Delhi.

“Our approach: Now is a time for diplomacy, for a strong diplomacy,” he said. “We also really believe that, with [the] leadership of President Trump, we could achieve long-lasting, just peace.”

Though Ukraine is open to diplomatic solutions, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has insisted that the sovereignty of his country is not negotiable and that Russia must relinquish the territory it has seized.

Russia annexed the Crimean Peninsula in 2014 and now controls most of four eastern Ukrainian regions since it invaded the country in 2022.

Trump and Putin are expected to talk on the phone during Moscow’s early afternoon, equivalent to the midmorning in Washington, DC.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said there was already “a certain understanding” between Trump and Putin based on a call on February 12.

“But there are also a large number of questions regarding the further normalization of our bilateral relations and a settlement on Ukraine. All of this will have to be discussed by the two presidents,” Peskov said.

“The leaders will speak for as long as they deem necessary,” he said.

European allies and Ukraine will be watching developments closely from the sidelines.

“Many elements of a Final Agreement have been agreed to, but much remains,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform on Monday. 
“Thousands of young soldiers, and others, are being killed. Each week brings 2,500 soldier deaths, from both sides, and it must end NOW. I look very much forward to the call with President Putin,” Trump wrote.

The presidents of the United States and Russia are set to hold talks via telephone on Tuesday about the possibility of a peace agreement in Ukraine.

The Kremlin said settling the matters in Ukraine would not be the only thing up for discussion, with spokesman Dmitry Peskov saying talks would also deal with the normalization of Russia’s bilateral ties with the United States.

On Monday, Trump said that land and power plants would be the focus of talks to achieve peace between Russia and Ukraine.

Russia has also already indicated that it will not be backing down on demands that Ukraine should not become a member of the NATO security alliance.

Last week, Ukraine backed a proposed 30-day ceasefire and agreed to hold “immediate” negotiations with Russia following talks in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.

This will be the second phone call between the two leaders since Trump returned to office in January.