Trump says he'll speak separately to Zelenskyy and Putin on Monday about a potential Russia-Ukraine ceasefire

The two sides held direct talks on Friday for the first time since the war began.

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President Donald Trump on Saturday said that he'll speak separately to Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Monday as he ramps up efforts to help the two nations reach a ceasefire.

"I will be speaking, by telephone, to President Vladimir Putin of Russia on Monday, at 10:00 a.m.," Trump wrote in an all-caps post on Truth Social on Saturday, adding, "I will then be speaking to President Zelenskyy of Ukraine."

Trump said he would speak to Putin about "stopping the 'bloodbath' that is killing, on average, more than 5,000 Russian and Ukrainian soldiers a week, and trade."

“Hopefully it will be a productive day, a ceasefire will take place, and this very violent war, a war that should have never happened, will end,” he added.

Trump has urged Zelenskyy and Putin for months to reach a ceasefire deal to end the three-year-long war. Ending the war was a key campaign promise for Trump during the 2024 presidential election cycle.

Officials from Russia and Ukraine met in Istanbul on Friday to hold their first direct talks since the war began. The two sides reached an agreement for a prisoner swap but did not appear to be significantly closer to setting terms for a permanent ceasefire.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio also spoke with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on Saturday about peace talks, State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce said.

Putin did not attend the Istanbul talks. Trump told reporters on Friday that he and the Russian president "have to meet."

"He and I will meet. I think we’ll solve it, or maybe not," Trump added.

The president has for weeks escalated rhetoric against Putin, blasting him for striking Ukraine as U.S. officials tried to initiate talks between both sides.

“Vladimir, STOP!” Trump wrote in one April post after Russia bombarded Ukraine in attacks that killed at least 12 people.

Trump met with Zelenskyy for a private conversation on the sidelines of Pope Francis' funeral in Rome in April. After that meeting, the U.S. president questioned Putin's commitment to ending the war in Ukraine, writing in another Truth Social post that recent Russian strikes, "[make] me think that maybe he doesn’t want to stop the war, he’s just tapping me along,”

Earlier in his administration, Trump and top U.S. officials, like Vice President JD Vance, targeted their ire about the ongoing war on Zelenskyy, with a late February White House meeting between the three men devolving into a shouting match.

Last month, Ukraine and the U.S. reached a deal on an "economic partnership" between the two nations involving Ukraine's rare earth minerals.

NBC News reached out to the Russian and Ukrainian embassies for comment.

Alexandra Marquez

Alexandra Marquez is a politics reporter for NBC News.

Abigail Williams contributed.

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