• Trump calls Putin, says talks “good” but fumes at Kyiv strikes.
• Claims Putin avoids Zelensky “because he doesn’t like him.”
• Rubio meets Ukraine, EU allies, backs settlement talks.

Voicing optimism about ending the Ukraine war, US President Donald Trump said Monday he had recently spoken with Russian President Vladimir Putin following his Washington meeting with Volodymyr Zelensky and European leaders.

Trump was last known to have spoken to Putin on August 18, when he interrupted his talks with Zelensky and the Europeans at the White House to call the Russian leader.

“Yes, I have,” Trump told reporters when asked if he had talked to Putin since then.

Asked how the latest talks went, Trump replied: “Every conversation I have with him is a good conversation. And then, unfortunately, a bomb is loaded up into Kyiv or someplace, and I get very angry about it.”

Trump also held a landmark summit with Putin in Alaska on August 15 in a bid to seal a deal to end Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

After their previous call on August 18, Trump said Putin had agreed to hold a bilateral meeting with Zelensky, but Moscow has since said there are no plans for such talks.

“Because he doesn’t like him,” Trump said when asked why Putin appeared reluctant to meet face-to-face with Zelensky.

Trump said, however, that he still believed a deal to end Russia’s war on Ukraine was in sight.

“I think we’re going to get the war done,” he said.

Following the talks with Zelensky and the Europeans, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio agreed to keep up discussions among allies toward a future settlement.

The State Department said that Rubio spoke Monday in a joint call with Ukraine’s foreign minister as well as their counterparts from Britain, France, Finland, Germany, Italy, Poland and the European Union.

The ministers agreed to “continue cooperation in diplomatic efforts to bring the Russia-Ukraine war to an end through a lasting negotiated settlement,” State Department spokesman Tommy Pigott said.

Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani of Italy, whose right-wing government has worked to unite the United States and fellow Europeans, called again for guarantees to Ukraine inspired by NATO’s promise of collective defence.

Tajani “highlighted the importance of concrete and credible security guarantees for Ukraine, notably in strengthening the Ukrainian armed forces and its defence industry,” he said, according to a foreign ministry statement.

He said Italy was ready to participate in demining operations on land and sea.

Trump last week told Zelensky vaguely of forward movement on security guarantees, but has repeatedly sided with Russia in ruling out Ukraine’s membership in NATO.