Trump said what kind of benefit he expects from Putin

U.S. President Donald Trump said that Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin wants to be helpful on the Middle East, but would be more helpful if he ended the war in Ukraine.

This was reported based on a White House broadcast.

While speaking to reporters, Trump was asked what he could say about his phone call with Putin on March 9 and what they discussed.

Trump replied that the conversation was “very good,” and that many people were on the line on both sides. One of the topics was the war in Ukraine.

“We talked about Ukraine — it’s just an endless fight… There is tremendous hatred between President Putin and President Zelensky. It seems they can’t reach an agreement,” Trump said.

At the same time, he still described the conversation as positive. Another topic was the situation in the Middle East. According to Trump, Putin wants to be helpful on that issue, but Trump believes the dictator would be far more helpful if he ended his war against Ukraine.

“Of course, we talked about the Middle East. And he wants to be helpful. I said: ‘You could be even more helpful if you ended the war between Ukraine and Russia. That would be more helpful,’” the U.S. president emphasized.

Summing up, Trump added that the call was good and that Putin wants to act “very constructively.”

As a reminder, since the start of 2026, Ukraine, the United States, and Russia have already held three rounds of trilateral peace talks aimed at ending the war.

The sides have not resolved the territorial issue, particularly Donbas, but there has been progress on other matters.

In early March, representatives of the three countries were supposed to hold a fourth round of talks in Abu Dhabi, but it was canceled because of the conflict in the Middle East.

A resumption of diplomacy was expected this week. However, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on March 9 that the meeting is still being postponed because of the situation with Iran.

It is also worth adding that Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff recently said work on the final document is continuing and that new results are expected in the coming weeks.