Hello and welcome to NewsHour. It's coming to you live from the BBC World Service Studios in central London. I'm Tim Franks.

And we're starting the programme with news of a telephone call, a conversation between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin, about the war in Ukraine.

We're told that their chat lasted more than two hours, and in the

style to which we've become accustomed, it was the Russians who got their read-out, their version of

events out first. Indeed, almost as soon as the call was over, they started briefing. Russian

state media quoting President Putin as saying it had been informative, frank and useful.

Then indeed we heard from the president himself.

We agreed with the President of the United States that Russia will propose and is ready to work with the Ukrainian side

on a memorandum regarding a possible future peace treaty,

outlining a number of positions, such as the principles of resolution, the timeline for a potential

peace agreement, and so on, including the possible cessation of hostilities for a certain period

in the event of reaching specific agreements.

Well, shortly after there was some readout from Donald Trump on social media,

the tone and spirit of my conversation with President Putin was excellent

that Russia and Ukraine will start negotiations on a ceasefire immediately

and that the Vatican is interested in hosting those talks.

Let's hear first from Moscow, where Steve Rosenberg was listening to the public remarks made by President Putin just after the call ended.

He said that Russia supported the idea of a peaceful resolution of the Ukraine conflict, but the most effective ways to reach peace had to be worked out.

So in other words, Russia for peace, but, and that's something we've

heard several times before from the Kremlin. He also talked about Russia and Ukraine working

on a memorandum about a possible future peace agreement. Possible future, that sounds a little bit

vague. He said, overall, we're on the right path. So to summarize, you know, Russia's

...