President Trump announced in a Truth Social post Thursday morning that he would be speaking to Vladimir Putin at 10am. He didn't comment on the call later on, but according to the Kremlin's description of the call, there may not be a Ukraine peace deal any time soon. Putin told Trump that Russia "will achieve the goals it has set: that is the elimination of the well-known root causes that led to the current state of affairs, to the current acute confrontation, and Russia will not back down from these goals," Kremlin spokesman Yuri Ushakov said, per Fox News.
Trump "once again raised the issue of ending the hostilities as soon as possible," while Putin "noted that we still continued the search for a political, negotiated solution to the conflict," Ushakov said. Reuters describes "root causes" as "Russian shorthand for the issue of NATO enlargement and Western support for Ukraine." Ushakov said there was also a detailed discussion of "Iran, and the state of affairs in the Middle East in general," with Putin stressing that it was crucial to settle issues "exclusively via political and diplomatic means."
The Kremlin described the hourlong call, the sixth publicly disclosed conversation between the leaders since Trump returned to the White House, as "frank and constructive," the AP reports. Trump "began the conversation by announcing that the US Congress passed his administration's flagship bill envisaging reforms in taxation, immigration, and the energy sector," Ushakov said. He said Putin wished Trump "success in implementing the changes he envisioned and, naturally, offered greetings for Independence Day." Ushakov said the leaders did not discuss the pause on US arms shipments to Ukraine. There was another drone attack on Kyiv hours after the call, Reuters reports.
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