President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine said that he expected to speak with President Trump later on Wednesday to “discuss the details of the next steps” after the American leader’s call with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia.
The Kremlin said that in a call with President Trump on Tuesday, Mr. Putin had agreed to a limited cease-fire that would halt attacks on Ukrainian energy infrastructure. The proposal fell short of a 30-day unconditional truce that Kyiv had agreed to at Washington’s urging.
On Wednesday, Mr. Zelensky appeared open to the latest offer of a limited cease-fire, but said he thought that such a truce would need U.S. monitoring to work.
“Just the assertion and the word of Putin that he will not strike energy sites is too little,” Mr. Zelensky said. “War has made us practical people.”
Ukraine would prepare a list of sites that would need to be protected — and if monitoring confirmed that “Russia doesn’t strike our objects, we will not strike theirs,” he told a news conference in Helsinki alongside Finland’s president, Alexander Stubb.
Underscoring the lack of trust between Ukraine and Russia, the two countries traded accusations on Wednesday about attacks against each others’ energy infrastructure.
Mr. Zelensky has characterized some of the conditions Mr. Putin has set for a broader cease-fire — such as a demand for a complete cessation of foreign military and intelligence aid to Ukraine — as an attempt to stall for time so that Russia can improve its forces’ positions on the battlefield and its negotiating hand.
The Ukrainian president reiterated that point after the call between Mr. Putin and Mr. Trump, saying that in setting conditions, Russia had made clear it was unwilling to end the war.
Ukraine’s European allies have cautiously welcomed any moves toward a cease-fire, while pledging further support for Kyiv and echoing concerns about Russia’s conditions.
“It’s a yes or a no. No buts, no conditions,” Mr. Stubb, Finland’s president, told the news conference. “Ukraine accepted a cease-fire without any forms of conditions. If Russia refuses to agree, we need to increase our efforts to strengthen Ukraine and to ratchet up pressure on Russia.”
The 30-day cease-fire proposal that Ukraine had agreed to after talks with U.S. officials in Saudi Arabia was more extensive. It would have applied to land, air and sea — the first cessation of hostilities since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine more than three years ago. That monthlong truce, Mr. Zelensky has said, was meant to give time for fuller negotiations about a longer-term peace.
On Wednesday, he reiterated that Ukraine would have “red lines” going into any such talks.
“For us, a red line is the recognition of Ukraine’s temporarily occupied territories as Russian,” he said. “We will not agree to that.”
Anastasia Kuznietsova and Johanna Lemola contributed reporting.
