The US president-elect has reportedly called the Russian leader to discuss the Ukraine conflict and its potential settlement.
US President-elect Donald Trump has called Russian President Vladimir Putin to discuss the Ukraine conflict and its potential settlement, the Washington Post reported on Sunday, citing several people familiar with the matter.
The phone call took place on Thursday, shortly after Trump secured his election victory. The US president-elect reportedly urged Putin not to “escalate” the conflict, reminding him of the significant US military presence in Europe, one of the sources told the daily.
Apart from that, Trump and Putin spoke about “the goal of peace on the European continent,” with the president-elect expressing interest in follow-up conversations to talk about “the resolution of Ukraine’s war soon,” several other unnamed individuals told the WaPo. The report gave no insights into what reaction, if any, Trump’s remarks invoked.
The Washington Post also claimed that Kiev was “informed” ahead of the call and allegedly “did not object” – but the Ukrainian foreign ministry denied this part of the report.
“Reports that the Ukrainian side was informed in advance of the alleged call are false. Subsequently, Ukraine could not have endorsed or opposed the call,” Ukrainian foreign ministry spokesperson Georgiy Tikhiy told Reuters.
Thus far, Moscow has made no official comments on the reported phone call between Trump and Putin. On Thursday, the president-elect told NBC News he had already spoken with “probably” 70 world leaders since his election victory, but Putin was not among them. “I think we’ll speak,” Trump said at the time.
Trump has already spoken with Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky, who described the conversation as “positive” and said Trump’s outreach shortly after his victory was encouraging. Zelensky noted that he “cannot yet know” what Trump’s actions will ultimately be and that, should a resolution of the conflict be “just fast,” it would likely mean “losses for Ukraine.”
Throughout his election campaign, Trump has repeatedly pledged to swiftly end the conflict between Moscow and Kiev, potentially even before officially assuming office. However, he has not provided any concrete details on how he plans to achieve this.
But the Kremlin is denying that any of this happened. It is saying the call didn’t even take place. Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov blasted the Post report as “pure fiction” and said that currently there are no plans for the Russian president to speak to Trump.