Trump says he has spoken to Putin about ending the Ukraine war
Item 1 of 2 Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin meet in Helsinki, Finland, July 16, 2018. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque
[1/2]Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin meet in Helsinki, Finland, July 16, 2018. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque Purchase Licensing Rights - Trump says he spoke to Putin, New York Post reports
- Kremlin spokesman neither confirms nor denies report
- Putin says willing to discuss, but not giving up land
- Zelenskiy to Trump: 'Let's do a deal'
MOSCOW, Feb 9 (Reuters) - U.S. President
Donald Trump said he has spoken to Russian President
Vladimir Putin
by phone about ending the war in Ukraine, the New York Post reported,
the first known direct conversation between Putin and a U.S president
since early 2022.
Trump,
who has promised to end the war in Ukraine but not yet set out in
public how he would do so, said last week that the war was a bloodbath
and that his team had had "some very good talks".
In
an interview aboard Air Force One on Friday Trump told the New York
Post that he had "better not say," when asked how many times he and
Putin had spoken.
"He
(Putin) wants to see people stop dying," Trump told the New York Post.
The White House did not respond to a request for comment outside normal
business hours.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told the TASS state news agency that "many different communications are emerging".
"These
communications are conducted through different channels," Peskov said
when asked by TASS to comment directly on the New York Post report. "I
personally may not know something, be unaware of something. Therefore,
in this case, I can neither confirm nor deny it."
The
conflict in eastern Ukraine began in 2014 after a pro-Russian president
was toppled in Ukraine's Maidan Revolution and Russia annexed Crimea,
with Russian-backed separatist forces fighting Ukraine's armed forces.
Putin
sent thousands of troops into Ukraine in 2022, calling it a "special
military operation" to protect Russian speakers in Ukraine and counter
what he said was a grave threat to Russia from potential Ukrainian
membership of NATO.
Ukraine
and its Western backers, led by the United States, said the invasion
was an imperial style land grab and vowed to defeat Russian forces.
Moscow
controls a chunk of Ukraine about the size of the American state of
Virginia and is advancing at the fastest pace since the early days of
the 2022 invasion.
TRUMP-PUTIN SUMMIT?
Trump,
author of the 1987 book "Trump: the Art of the Deal", has repeatedly
said he wants to end the war and that he will meet Putin to discuss it,
though the date or venue for a summit is still not publicly known.
Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are seen by Russia as possible venues for a summit,
Reuters reported earlier this month.On
June 14, Putin set out his opening terms for an immediate end to the
war: Ukraine must drop its NATO ambitions and withdraw its troops from
the entirety of the territory of four Ukrainian regions claimed and
mostly controlled by Russia.
Reuters reported in November that
Putin is open to discussing a Ukraine peace deal with Trump but rules out making any major territorial concessions and insists Kyiv abandon ambitions to join NATO.
The Kremlin has repeatedly urged caution over speculation about contacts with the Trump team over a possible peace deal.
Leonid
Slutsky, head of the Russian parliament's international affairs
committee, was cited by the state RIA news agency on Thursday as saying
that preparations for such a meeting were at "an advanced stage" and
that it could take place in February or March.
Putin
last spoke to former U.S. President Joe Biden in February 2022, shortly
before Putin ordered thousands of troops into Ukraine. The two leaders
spoke for about an hour then, the Kremlin said.
Washington
Post journalist Bob Woodward, in his 2024 book "War", reported that
Trump had direct conversations as many as seven times with Putin after
he left the White House in 2021.
Asked
if that were true in an interview to Bloomberg last year, Trump said: "If I did, it's a smart thing." The Kremlin
denied Woodward's report.
On Friday, Trump said he would
probably meet Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy next week to discuss ending the war.
Zelenskiy
told Reuters that he wanted Ukraine to supply the U.S. with rare earths
and other minerals in return for financially supporting its war effort.
Trump
told the New York Post that he has "always had a good relationship with
Putin" and that he has a concrete plan to end the war. But he did not
disclose further details.
"I hope it's fast," Trump said. "Every day people are dying. This war is so bad in Ukraine. I want to end this damn thing."
Writing
by Lidia Kelly in Melbourne and Guy Faulconbridge in Moscow; Additional
reporting by Nilutpal Timsina in Bengaluru; Editing by Saad Sayeed and
Christina Fincher