Trump-Putin talks yield preliminary air ceasefire ahead of trilateral meeting

Following recent talks between US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin, a preliminary agreement on a temporary ceasefire in the air has reportedly been reached, according to Oliver Carroll, a correspondent for The Economist, citing his own source.

The agreement is expected to take effect before a planned trilateral meeting involving Putin, Trump, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

New. I’m told there is a provisional agreement of an air ceasefire until 3-way leaders meeting. “We think the skies will give signals about provisional results of these talks,” source tells me. "The next week will be interesting.”

— Oliver Carroll (@olliecarroll) August 16, 2025

Earlier, Bloomberg reported that Putin was considering a pause in air strikes using drones and missiles as a potential concession to Trump.

Sources cited by RBC-Ukraine indicated that the Ukrainian side supports a so-called truce in the skies with Russia, but no response from Moscow has been reported so far.

At the same time, Mikhail Podolyak, an adviser to the head of the Office of the President of Ukraine, stressed last week that Russia is unlikely to halt missile and long-range drone strikes, noting that targeting the civilian population is a deliberate tactic of war employed by the aggressor.

The Trump-Putin talks, held in Alaska, lasted two hours and 45 minutes. The US president rated the discussions “ten out of ten” and expressed confidence that a peace agreement could be reached, describing the probability as “fairly high.”

Trump also reportedly advised Zelenskyy to consider the possibility of concluding peace agreements, while Putin described the dialogue with the US leader as “very good.”

On the eve of the Alaska meeting, Trump did not rule out that the talks could lead to an early trilateral meeting with Zelenskyy and Putin. Subsequently, Ukrainian President Zelensky spoke by phone with Trump, supporting the US president’s proposal for a trilateral meeting involving Ukraine, the United States, and Russia.

By Tamilla Hasanova