US President Donald Trump said that he wants to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin "as soon as possible" to broker an end to the war in Ukraine, when speaking to delegates at the World Economic Forum in Davos by video link on January 23.

The newly inaugurated president described the conflict as a "carnage" that has claimed countless lives, and added his desire to pursue nuclear arms reductions in collaboration with Russia and China.

“I really would like to be able to meet with President Putin soon to get that war ended,” Trump stated. “Millions of lives are being wasted … It’s a carnage. And we really have to stop that war.”

“I’m not looking to hurt Russia. I love the Russian people, and always had a very good relationship with President Putin - and this despite the Radical Left’s Russia, Russia, Russia HOAX,” Trump said in a post on his social media platform Truth Social.

“We must never forget that Russia helped us win the Second World War, losing almost 60,000,000 lives in the process. All of that being said, I’m going to do Russia, whose Economy is failing, and President Putin, a very big FAVOR. Settle now, and STOP this ridiculous War! IT’S ONLY GOING TO GET WORSE...We can do it the easy way, or the hard way - and the easy way is always better. It’s time to “MAKE A DEAL.” NO MORE LIVES SHOULD BE LOST!!!"

Historians estimate that the Soviet Union lost some 25mn people in WWII of which around 13mn were ethnic Russians. However, the reminder of Russia’s pivotal role in the victory over the Nazis will play very well in Moscow as the Russian sacrifice to what they call “The Great Patriotic war” is deeply engrained in the Russian psyche.

If we don’t make a “deal,” and soon, I have no other choice but to put high levels of Taxes, Tariffs, and Sanctions on anything being sold by Russia to the United States, and various other participating countries. Let’s get this war, which never would have started if I were President, over with! We can do it the easy way, or the hard way - and the easy way is always better. It’s time to “MAKE A DEAL.” NO MORE LIVES SHOULD BE LOST!!!

Trump pledged during his 2024 election campaign to end the Ukraine-Russia conflict on "day one" of his presidency but has since ordered his appointment National Security Advisor Keith Kellogg to come up with a plan to end the war within the first 100 days of his administration.

The Senate on January 20 confirmed Marco Rubio as Secretary of State, the first of President Trump's Cabinet nominees to win the approval of the upper chamber, who will be tasked with implementing the plan.

In comments to the press Rubio has shown himself to be a pragmatist on the problem of ending the conflict and suggested that Ukraine will have to make some territorial concessions in any deal with Russia.

While the White House has yet to provide a timeline, Trump told reporters later the same day that he was ready to engage in talks without delay. “From what I hear, Putin would like to see me, and we’ll leave as soon as we can. I’d meet immediately,” he said, adding, “Every day we don’t meet, soldiers are being killed on the battlefield.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin congratulated Donald Trump on his inauguration as the 47th president of the United States shortly before the ceremony began and said that he was open to starting talks on a ceasefire, expressing hope for a more constructive relationship than with the outgoing administration led by Joe Biden.

While Russia has the initiative on the battlefield and the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU)’s manpower shortage crisis is gathering momentum, Putin is under increasing pressure from a flagging economy to bring the war to an end.

A half dozen plans have been floated in the run up to the start of the Trump presidency, but the strategy remains unclear. Kellogg suggested that the US should flood Ukraine with weapons if Putin refuses to come to the negotiating table and cut Ukraine off completely if Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy refuses to negotiate.

Trump himself has offered few specifics on what he intends to do, but in recent comments he has suggested that he will be a little more pragmatic than suggested by his campaign trail hyperbole.

Trump issued a stark warning to Putin on January 23, threatening “severe economic measures” unless a peace agreement is reached to end the conflict in Ukraine. In a post on Truth Social, Trump cautioned that he would impose significant taxes, tariffs and sanctions on Russian exports to the US and unspecified “participating countries” if the Kremlin does not act quickly to bring an end to the war.

Given that Russia exported a mere $3bn worth goods to the US in 2024, experts say that there is barely anything to slap tariffs on and that Trump’s threat is therefore hollow.

After three years of largely ineffective sanctions on Russia, since last December the US so-called strangulation sanctions have become more effective. The Biden administration has switched from generic sanctions on sectors to targeting individual banks, companies and oil tankers that have been taken seriously by Russia’s trading partners, who cut off ties with their Russian counterparties, keen to avoid secondary sanctions. The US financial sanctions have been particularly effective and were followed in December shortly before the handover by the harshest oil sanctions yet to be imposed, that are expected to disrupt Russia’s oil exports this year.

Trump claimed Zelenskiy has expressed readiness to negotiate a peace deal, following a call with the Ukrainian leader, but revealed no details of their conversation.

Zelenskiy calls for strong support

Zelenskiy also addressed the delegates at the World Economic Forum in person and repeated his calls for “strong security guarantees” from his Western partners as a prerequisite for the start of any ceasefire talks with Russia. He also reiterated that any deal must result not only in an end to the conflagration, but in a “just and fair” peace.

Zelenskiy was among the first to congratulate Trump on his inauguration on January 20 and hailed the opportunity to achieve a just peace in his country which has been at war for almost three years.

"President Trump is always decisive, and the peace-through-strength policy he announced provides an opportunity to strengthen American leadership and achieve a long-term and just peace, which is the top priority," Zelenskiy said on X.

"We are stronger together, and we can provide greater security, stability, and economic growth to the world and our two nations," he added.

However, in Davos Zelenskiy sketched out a relatively inflexible negotiating position. He said that Ukraine will not compromise on the recognition of the occupied territories as part of Russia, even under pressure from all allies.

"De jura, we do not recognise, no matter what anyone wants. Even if all the allies of the world unite, we still will not recognise the occupied territories. It's impossible. We do not legally recognise them. For us, they will always remain occupied territories until we return there," Zelenskiy said during a meeting with representatives of the International Media Council at Davos.

Putin has repeatedly stressed that any deal will have to acknowledge the “realities on the ground” widely interpreted to mean he expects Ukraine to concede to Russia the occupied territories. However, leaked comments from the Kremlin have suggested there is a “limited wiggle room” over territory negotiations. More recently, Putin hinted that he is open to a territory swap, trading Russian occupied territories for land occupied by the AFU in the Russian Kursk region. Russia currently occupies some 20% of Ukraine’s land.

Zelenskiy noted that a dialogue with Russia should take place only from a position of strength, since any attempt to treat the aggressor on equal terms is a defeat for Ukraine.

Bankova (Ukraine’s equivalent of the Kremlin) has been holding out on accelerated Nato membership as the best security guarantee against future Russian attacks, but the Nato members have made it clear that remains off the table. In lieu of that, Zelenskiy has been touring Europe in recent weeks meeting with leaders and asking for bilateral security deals which are essential for a lasting peace. A week ago Zelenskiy signed off on a 100-year partnership with UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer that included a commitment to over $3bn a year in military funding. However, when asked if the deal included a real security deal, Starmer dodged the question, saying only the UK would “do its part”.

Currently the proposed half measure to bilateral security guarantees is for Western partners to send peacekeepers to enforce any ceasefire, an idea being championed by French President Emmanuel Macron.

Commenting at Davos, Zelenskiy said that the west would need to send 200,000 peacekeepers for the force to be effective – a very large number.

"I support the idea of contingents as part of security guarantees. Because if they [the Russian Federation] have an army of 1.5mn, and if we have half as many, it means that we need contingents with a very significant number of soldiers," Zelenskiy said. "Some 200,000 minimum, otherwise nothing.”

Putin has already made it clear that the Kremlin totally rejects the idea of deploying any Nato-backed forces on Ukraine’s territory in any deal with Ukraine.

Without western bilateral security guarantees, Zelenskiy says that Ukraine has to rely on the AFU as the only real security it has against Russian attack and has flatly refused to “play those games” after Putin made it clear that the reduction in the size of Ukraine’s military will be one of the Kremlin’s demands.

"Putin cannot be subjugated in this story. He broke everything. He is to blame and must realise this. But you can't stop him if you talk to him on equal terms – it's a loss for Ukraine," he said.

But Zelenskiy emphasised that ending the active phase of the war is a top priority for the country.

"We must find all the opportunities to end the hot stage of the war. That's the number one question. There may be a lot of negotiations, but the main thing is to stop the active phase. This is the number one security guarantee," the President stressed.

Russia has been making steady gains, albeit at an extremely high cost in personnel, in recent months as it closes in on the crucial logistic hub in Pokrovsk that supports a large part of the AFU’s defensive lines in the Donbas. At the same time morale amongst the AFU defenders appears to be crumbling as numerous reports complain of the lack of men and an escalating rate of desertion amongst Ukrainian soldiers holding the line against the Russian onslaught.

Nuclear arms reduction

In one positive development amongst the maelstrom of executive order blizzard of his first day in office, Trump also floated a proposal to cut global nuclear stockpiles and restart arms control talks, focusing on Russia, China and the US, positioning the initiative as a step towards broader denuclearisation.

“We’d like to see denuclearisation,” he said. “I will tell you, President Putin really liked the idea of cutting way back on nuclear. And I think the rest of the world—we would have gotten them to follow, and China would have come along too.”

Moscow has been consistently rattling its nuclear sabre throughout the war, in a tactic that has effectively limited Western support to Ukraine as part of an “escalation management” policy designed to prevent Ukraine’s defeat in the war, but at the same time provoking Russia into an attack on Nato. The upshot has been a policy of supplying Ukraine with “some, but not enough” military help to ensure a victory.

Putin has refused to engage in talks to replace the START III missile treaty arms control treaty, which he signed with US President Joe Biden in January 2021 in the first week after his inauguration and is set to expire in 2026. The agreement was the first Cold War security deal to be renewed since the fall of the Soviet Union and was seen as the harbinger of a new cooperative post-Soviet relations. The treaty currently limits both the US and Russia to deploying no more than 1,550 strategic nuclear warheads, but has been suspended by Russia since 2023 after relations with the Biden administration deteriorated.

Analysts suggest Trump’s overtures, if successful, could signal a shift in US foreign policy, but scepticism remains over Moscow’s willingness to de-escalate

This article has been updated with addition Trump quotes.