US President Donald Trump had a "lengthy call" with his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky on the flight back to Washington after the summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday yielded no ceasefire, according to White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt.

Zelensky said on Saturday that he will meet Trump on Monday in Washington to discuss "ending the killing and the war" after being briefed by the US president on the "main points" of his summit with Putin.

Kyiv, he said, is ready for constructive cooperation and supports trilateral meeting of leaders of United States, Ukraine and Russia.

"Ukraine reaffirms its readiness to work with maximum effort to achieve peace," he said on X social network.

"We support President Trump's proposal for a trilateral meeting between Ukraine, the USA and Russia. Ukraine emphasizes that key issues can be discussed at the level of leaders, and a trilateral format is suitable for this."

"If all works out, we will then schedule a meeting with President Putin," Trump said in a Truth Social post.

"The best way to end the horrific war between Russia and Ukraine is to go directly to a Peace Agreement, which would end the war, and not a mere Ceasefire Agreement," he said.

Trump also spoke with Nato leaders, Leavitt told reporters on Air Force One. The president disembarked from the plane at 2.45 am Saturday local time, or 2.45pm Hong Kong time, and did not respond to reporters' questions.

He spoke with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, French President Emmanuel Macron, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, Finnish President Alexander Stubb, Polish President Karol Nawrocki, European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen and Nato secretary general Mark Rutte, European Commission spokeswoman Arianna Podesta said.

She gave no details of the roughly hour-long conversation.

European leaders held a second call afterwards to discuss the next steps in the Ukraine conflict, she said.

There was no immediate comment from Zelenskyy or from other European leaders, who didn't have a place at the table at Friday's summit.

Putin's foreign affairs adviser, Yuri Ushakov, said on Russian state television on Saturday that a potential trilateral meeting between Trump, Putin and Zelensky had not been raised in US-Russia discussions.

“The topic has not been touched upon yet,” Ushakov said, according to Russian state news agency Ria Novosti. (Agencies)
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Last updated: 2025-01-16 HKT 17:25