Trump and Putin agree to set up expert groups on ‘settlement’ of war and for Russia-Ukraine PoW swap, Kremlin says

Key events

Russia agrees to limited energy and infrastructure ceasefire in Ukraine, White House says

Russia has agreed to a limited energy and infrastructure ceasefire in Ukraine as part of the US-led initiative to end the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the White House has confirmed.

In a statement released after Donald Trump’s call with Vladimir Putin, the White House said the two sides agreed to hold “technical negotiations” on a maritime ceasefire, and, further, full ceasefire and permanent peace.

“These negotiations will begin immediately in the Middle East,” the White House said.

Trump and Putin also “agreed that a future with an improved bilateral relationship between the US and Russia has huge upside,” with “enormous economic deals and geopolitical stability.”

Readout of President Donald J. Trump’s Call with President Vladimir Putin

Today, President Trump and President Putin spoke about the need for peace and a ceasefire in the Ukraine war. Both leaders agreed this conflict needs to end with a lasting peace. They also stressed the need for improved bilateral relations between the United States and Russia.The blood and treasure that both Ukraine and Russia have been spending in this war would be better spent on the needs of their people.
This conflict should never have started and should have been ended long ago with sincere and good faith peace efforts. The leaders agreed that the movement to peace will begin with an energy and infrastructure ceasefire, as well as technical negotiations on implementation of a maritime ceasefire in the Black Sea, full ceasefire and permanent peace. These negotiations will begin immediately in the Middle East. The leaders spoke broadly about the Middle East as a region of potential cooperation to prevent future conflicts. They further discussed the need to stop proliferation of strategic weapons and will engage with others to ensure the broadest possible application. The two leaders shared the view that Iran should never be in a position to destroy Israel. The two leaders agreed that a future with an improved bilateral relationship between the United States and Russia has huge upside. This includes enormous economic deals and geopolitical stability when peace has been achieved.

Russia and Ukraine to swap 175 prisoners of war, Kremlin says

We’re getting first lines from the Kremlin, via Reuters, confirming that the two leaders discussed Ukraine and agreed that Ukraine and Russia will swap 175 prisoners of war.

These early reports say the pair agreed to “set up expert groups on Ukrainian settlement” to work further on the issue.

They also say the two discussed Middle East, and energy.

We will bring you more soon.

Both the Kremlin and the White House have now confirmed the call is over.

US broadcaster CBS News and Russian state news agency TASS are reporting that the Trump-Putin phone call has now concluded.

We will bring you any official lines as soon as we get them.

We are still waiting to hear from the White House or the Kremlin, but…

We just got this line via Reuters from Kirill Dmitriev, Vladimir Putin’s special envoy on international economic and investment cooperation, reportedly saying that:

Under the leadership of president Putin and president Trump, the world has become a much safer place today.

Let’s wait and see what that means.

Ukraine’s Yermak lays out Kyiv’s ‘red lines’ as Trump-Putin call continues

Shaun Walker

Central and eastern Europe correspondent

Yermak (right) during a meeting with US officials in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia last week. Photograph: Ukrainian Presidential Press Service Handout/EPA

Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s chief of staff Andriy Yermak laid out Kyiv’s so-called “red lines” on Tuesday, prior to the Trump-Putin call.

“Ukraine will not discuss neutral status or a reduction in numbers of our armed forces. We will never recognises any temporarily occupied territory as Russian,” he wrote on Telegram.

Zelenskyy arrives in Finland

Zelenskyy on his way from the airport to the hotel in Helsinki, Finland. Photograph: Teemu Salonen/AP

In the meantime, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy has arrived in Finland, where he is due to meet with the country’s leaders.

Zelenskyy said the talks will cover defence support, investments in Ukrainian weapons production, and European integration, as well as any lessons that Ukraine could draw from Finland’s experience in civil protection.

He also repeated his call for “strengthening sanctions against Russia and coordinating efforts for a dignified end to the war.”

He added:

Europe must be at the negotiating table, and everything that concerns European security must be decided together with Europe.

Finland’s president Alex Stubb said in a social media post that he was “honoured” to welcome Zelenskyy and his wife to Finland. The two leaders will appear at a joint press conference on Wednesday, according to a plan of the visit.

In an interview with BBC News earlier today, Stubb said that any future security arrangement for Ukraine would need to build on the strenght of Ukraine’s army, which he called “the most modern and the strongest in Europe,” and adding to that further European help “in one way or another,” and “some kind of backup by the US.”

Jakub Krupa

We’re still waiting for the Trump-Putin call to end.

We will bring you first lines from both the White House and the Kremlin, and reactions from elsewhere, as soon as we get them.

Germany votes for ‘historic’ spending package – analysis

Kate Connolly

Berlin correspondent

Germany’s parliament has voted in favour of unleashing historic levels of spending to boost the military of Europe’s biggest economy and inject its infrastructure with investments worth hundreds of billions of euros.

The conservatives of Friedrich Merz and the Social Democrats (SPD), who are likely to form a new coalition following last month’s election, led the drive for the creation of a €500bn fund and relaxation of its constitutionally protected debt rules. They secured the last-minute backing of the Greens, which was needed to push the plans through the outgoing parliament.

Hailed by some as a necessary measure to give Germany the fiscal heft it needs to ensure national and European security, and by others as a “highly risky bet” that will be a burden for generations to come, the package received the backing on Tuesday of 513 MPs, with 207 voting against, and no abstentions. The minimum required was 489 votes.

Having passed the Bundestag, the lower house of parliament, the legislation will on Friday go to the Bundesrat, the upper house, which represents the governments of Germany’s 16 federal states.

Full story:

Furious AfD leader Weidel says Merz’s proposals would be ruinous for Germany

Kate Connolly

Berlin correspondent

Alice Weidel (AfD) during the 213. Meeting of the German Bundestag in the Reichstag building in Berlin. Photograph: snapshot/Future Image/F Kern/REX/Shutterstock

A visibly furious Alice Weidel, co-leader of the anti-Euro, Kremlin-friendly, anti-immigrant far-right Alternative für Deutschland has delivered an excoriating verdict on the bazooka funding package, calling it a “historical day” on which Germany had decided to take on a “gigantic debt” with which generations to come, in particular young people, would be inordinately burdened.

The election “losers”, Social Democrats and Greens, she said were “popping champagne corks” because they “can now spend more money on their programmes than they were ever able to when they were in government,” thanks to the debt brake relaxation legislation passed in the Bundestag today.

As for Friedrich Merz, she said, he had “broken all his election promises”, having “held an election campaign based on conservative-political change”, which he immediately “ditched on election night”.

“This is nothing other than election fraud worse than anything I’ve ever seen in the history of the Federal Republic of Germany,” she said.

Weidel, flanked by her party colleague, Tino Chrupalla, said all parties who voted for the legislation had been “open-eyed”, and Merz had “brought their votes”. Taxpayers, young people and consumers would bear the brunt of the policies, she said.

The policy would be ruinous for Germany’s reputation as a stable economy, she predicted, adding “we’ll lose our top rating (triple A status)” as a place to do business and in so doing will destabilise the whole of the eurozone, she said.

It would be the “fatal bullet” for the Euro as a currency, “which will lose its value spectacularly in the coming years”.

It would, she added, “blow up in the face” of ordinary Germans, and was “very bitter”.

She did not allow journalists to ask any questions.

In a week’s time the AfD, which came second in the election on 23 February, will take its new seats as the main opposition in the 21st Bundestag.

Trump-Putin call still in progress, White House says

In the latest update, the White House has said a few minutes ago that the call between the two leaders was “still in progress”.

Final glimpse at the 20th Bundestag

Kate Connolly

Berlin correspondent

After announcing the legislation had passed, the smiling, outgoing Bundestag president Bärbel Bas declared the more than six hour session, as well as the entire 20th Bundestag, closed.

She thanked the workers who were due to come in as soon as the chamber was cleared, to start adjusting the seating for the new, slimmed down (by around 100 seats) 21st parliament, which would involve overtime and weekend working, she said.

She also thanked the stenographers and other staff, as well as visitors to the Bundestag who had followed the debate, as well as those who had watched on television.

The empty hall after a special plenary session of the German parliament ‘Bundestag’, in Berlin, Germany, 18 March 2025. Photograph: Hannibal Hanschke/EPA

The new parliament, she said, will meet in a week’s time on 25 March at 11am.

Before leaving the chamber, many MPs, a lot of whom it was their last time in parliament, lingered to chat and take selfies on mobile phones.

Hanna Steinmüller of the Greens could be spotted on the floor still bouncing her delightful three-month-old son on her hip, attracting the smiles of many colleagues.

‘Largest fiscal regime shift since reunification’ of Germany, Deutsche Bank economist says

And here’s a quick take from Robin Winkler, the chief German economist at Deutsche Bank Research, on today’s vote in the Bundestag:

After much nail-biting over the last fortnight, Germany’s outgoing parliament today decided to reform the constitutional debt brake. In our view, this is a historic fiscal regime shift, arguably the largest since German reunification.

Yet, as with reunification, a fiscal expansion does not guarantee success: the next government will need to deliver structural reforms to turn this fiscal package into sustainable growth.

Jakub Krupa

The Bundesrat vote on the German reform is expected on Friday.

‘The money is here’ as Bundestag passes Merz’s proposals – snap analysis

Kate Connolly

Berlin correspondent

Outgoing Bundestag President, Bärbel Bas, told MPs: “The bill has been adopted with the required majority”.

According to the vote passed, the Basic Law will in future include the stipulations that defence spending, civil defence, intelligence services and cybersecurity will be exempt from the debt rule, if they exceed one per cent of normal GDP.

The individual 16 states are also to be granted borrowing leeway in the future planning of their budgets. According to this, borrowing for the states as a whole will be limited to 0.35 percent of nominal GDP.

Arguably most importantly, a €500bn “special fund” will be established for additional investments in infrastructure (such as rail, bridges, and roads), to be funded via loans. But the funds can also be used “for additional investments to achieve climate neutrality by 2045.”

Now we await the next hurdle: the vote in the Bundesrat, the upper house, where the legislation also requires a two-thirds majority, which it is expected to get.

Quick with its headlines, Bild has written: “Das Geld ist da”: the money is here.

First parliamentary secretary of the CDU/CSU parliamentary group Thorsten Frei and Germany’s chancellor-in-waiting and leader of the Christian Democratic Union party (CDU) Friedrich Merz raise their hands on the day of an extraordinary session of the outgoing lower house of parliament, the Bundestag, for a vote to adopt the draft law brought by the SPD and CDU/CSU parliamentary groups to reform constitutional debt rules and set up a 500 billion euro infrastructure fund, in Berlin, Germany. Photograph: Liesa Johannssen/Reuters

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Trump and Putin agree to set up expert groups on ‘settlement’ of war and for Russia-Ukraine PoW swap, Kremlin says – Europe live

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