MOSCOW, April 8 (Reuters) - U.S. investment bank Goldman

Sachs ( GS ) said bond pricing inferred that markets believed there was

70% probability of a Ukraine peace deal, up sharply from before

the November election of U.S. President Donald Trump.

"Our modeling suggests that current market pricing for a

peace deal has risen from below 50% prior to US elections to

around 70% at present," Goldman Sachs ( GS ) said in research note to

clients.

It added, however, that this was slightly lower than a peak

of 76% in February.

Trump, who says he wants to be remembered as a

peacemaker, has repeatedly said he wants to end the "bloodbath"

of the three-year conflict in Ukraine - which his administration

casts as a proxy war between the United States and Russia.

President Vladimir Putin said last month that Russia

supported a U.S. proposal for a ceasefire in Ukraine in

principle, but that fighting could not be paused until a number

of crucial conditions were worked out or clarified.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has said that

Putin's conditions for a ceasefire are unrealistic and has

accused the Russian leader of wanting to continue the war.

Russia currently controls a little under one fifth of

Ukraine, including Crimea which Russia annexed in 2014, and most

but not all of four other regions which Moscow now claims are

part of Russia - a claim not recognised by most countries.