US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin discussed Ukraine, Iran and other issues on Thursday in a “frank and constructive” phone call, the Kremlin said, in their sixth publicly disclosed talk since Trump returned to the White House.
On the war in Ukraine, Putin’s foreign affairs adviser Yuri Ushakov said Trump emphasised his push for a quick halt to the fighting, and Putin voiced Moscow’s readiness to pursue talks with Kyiv, noting the previous rounds in Turkey yielded humanitarian results.
At the same time, the Russian leader said Moscow will seek to achieve its goals in Ukraine and remove the “root causes” of the conflict, Ushakov said.
“Russia will not back down from these goals,” Ushakov told reporters after the call.
Putin has argued he sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022 to fend off a threat to Russia posed by Ukraine’s push to join NATO and protect Russian speakers in Ukraine, arguments rejected by Kyiv and its allies.
He insisted that any prospective peace deal must see Ukraine abandon its NATO bid and recognise Russia’s territorial gains.
Thursday’s call follows the Pentagon’s confirmation that it’s pausing shipment of some weapons to Ukraine as it reviews US military stockpiles.
The weapons being held up for Ukraine include air defence missiles, precision-guided artillery and other equipment.
The details on the weapons in some of the paused deliveries were confirmed by a US official and former national security official familiar with the matter.
They both requested anonymity to discuss what is being held up as the Pentagon has yet to provide details.
Ushakov said a suspension of some US weapons shipments to Ukraine wasn’t discussed in the Trump-Putin call.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in Denmark after meeting with major European Union backers that he may talk to Trump in the coming days about the suspension of weapons deliveries.
“I hope that maybe tomorrow, or close days, these days, I will speak about it with President Trump,” he said.
Asked about his expectations from the Trump-Putin call, he said that “I’m not sure that they have a lot of common ideas, common topics to talk (about), because they are very different people.”
The previous publicly known call between Trump and Putin was on 14 June, a day after Israel attacked Iran.
The resumed contacts between Trump and Putin appeared to reflect both leaders’ interest in mending ties that have plummeted to their lowest point since the Cold War amid the conflict in Ukraine.
Ushakov said Trump told Putin about his $4.5 trillion (€3.8 trillion) tax breaks and spending cuts bill and the Russian leader wished him success in pursuing his plans and also congratulated the US on the Independence Day holiday.
While discussing the situation around Iran and in the broader Middle East, Putin emphasised the need to resolve all differences “exclusively by political and diplomatic means,” said Ushakov.
The leaders agreed that Russian and US officials will maintain contacts on the issue, he added.
The United States struck three nuclear sites in Iran on 22 June, inserting itself into Israel’s conflict aimed at destroying Tehran’s nuclear programme.
The Kremlin adviser noted the leaders also discussed developments in Syria and expressed interest in pursuing bilateral projects in the energy sector and space exploration, during what he described as “frank, businesslike and concrete conversation.”
Ushakov added that Putin even suggested that the US and Russia could exchange movies promoting “traditional values shared by us and the Trump administration.”
On Tuesday, Putin and French President Emmanuel Macron held their first direct telephone call in almost three years.
