US President-elect Donald Trump on Sunday pushed Russian leader Vladimir Putin to act to reach an immediate ceasefire with Ukraine, describing it as part of his active efforts as president-elect to end the war despite being weeks from taking office.
"Zelensky and Ukraine would like to make a deal and stop the madness," Mr Trump wrote on social media, referring to Ukraine's president, Volodymyr Zelensky.
Asked on NBC's Meet the Press if he were actively working to end the nearly three-year-old Ukraine war, Mr Trump said, "I am."
He refused to say if he had spoken to Mr Putin since winning the election in November.
"I don't want to say anything about that, because I don't want to do anything that could impede the negotiation," he said.
Mr Trump's call for an immediate ceasefire went beyond the public policy stands taken by the Biden administration and Ukraine and drew a cautious response from Mr Zelensky.
It also marks Mr Trump wading unusually deep into efforts before his January inauguration to resolve one of the major global crises facing the Biden administration.
Mr Trump made his proposal after a weekend meeting in Paris with the French and Ukrainian presidents, where many world leaders gathered to celebrate the restoration of Notre Dame Cathedral.
"Kyiv would like to close a deal," Mr Trump wrote on his social media platform Truth Social. "There should be an immediate ceasefire and negotiations should begin."
"I know Vladimir well. This is his time to act. China can help. The World is waiting!" Mr Trump added, referring to mediation efforts by China that many in the West have seen as favouring Russia.
Mr Zelensky described his discussions with Trump, brought together by French President Emmanuel Macron, as "constructive" but has given no further details.
In a post Sunday on the Telegram app, Mr Zelensky cautioned that Ukraine needs a "just and robust peace, that Russians will not destroy within a few years".
"When we talk about an effective peace with Russia, we must talk, first of all, about effective peace guarantees. Ukrainians want peace more than anyone else. Russia brought war to our land," he said.
He insisted any peace deal "should be just" for Ukrainians, "so that Russia and Putin or any other aggressors will not have the opportunity to return".
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov reiterated Moscow's long-standing message that it is open to talks with Ukraine.
He referenced a decree by Mr Zelensky from October 2022 that formally declared the prospect of any talks "impossible" as long as Mr Putin was the Russian leader.
That decree came after Mr Putin proclaimed four occupied regions of Ukraine to be a part of Russia, in what Kyiv and the West was a clear violation of Ukrainian sovereignty, and despite Moscow lacking full military control over the areas.
For most of the war, Kyiv's official position has been to call for a full withdrawal of Russian troops from internationally recognised Ukrainian territory, including Crimea, as a condition for peace talks.
In a separate social media update on Sunday, Mr Zelensky asserted that Kyiv has so far lost 43,000 soldiers since Moscow's all-out invasion on February 24, 2022, while a further 370,000 have been injured.
Both Russia and Ukraine have been reluctant to publish official casualty figures, but Western officials have said the past few months of grinding positional warfare in eastern Ukraine have meant record losses for both sides, with tens of thousands killed and injured each month.
