RUSSIA – Trump-Putin Phone Call Update: On Thursday, the Russian president Vladimir Putin and his US counterpart Donald Trump held a phone call ahead of a Friday meeting with Zelenskyy on Friday in Washington.
This is the 8th phone call since Trump’s second term. What did they discuss about?
Tomahawk Cruise Missiles’ Delivery to Ukraine
Russian President Vladimir Putin told his US counterpart Donald Trump that potential long-range Tomahawk cruise missiles’ deliveries to Ukraine will damage ties between Moscow and Washington.
“Putin reiterated his thesis that Tomahawk missiles will not change the situation on the battlefield, but will cause significant damage to relations between our countries, not to mention the prospects for a peaceful settlement (in Ukraine),” Russian presidential aide Yuri Ushakov told journalists in a briefing.
Noting that the nearly two-and-a-half-hour conversation was “very substantive, yet also extremely frank and confidential,” Ushakov said that particular emphasis was placed on the Ukraine war during the talks, in which Putin gave Trump a “detailed assessment of the current situation.”
Ushakov said the US was told that Moscow has “complete strategic initiative” along the front line in Ukraine, and that Trump repeatedly emphasized the need for a swift peace in the war-torn country.
“One of the American president’s key points was that ending the conflict in Ukraine would open up enormous – he emphasized it – prospects for developing economic cooperation between the United States and Russia,” Ushakov also said.
Donald Trump spoke to reporters after the phone call,and when asked about Ukraine’s request for the US to provide it with Tomahawk cruise missiles to strike deep inside of Russia, Trump acknowledged that the matter came up during his call with Putin and said the Russian leader “didn’t like the idea.”
“What do you think he’s going to say, ‘Please sell tomahawks? Please sell those tomahawks. I really appreciate it,'” the US president sarcastically said in response to a reporter’s question. “I did actually say, ‘Would you mind if I gave a couple thousand Tomahawks to your opposition?’ I did say that to him. I said it just that way. He didn’t like the idea. He really didn’t like the idea.”
Still, it is not clear if the US president will sell the weapons to Kyiv, and he alluded to concerns he has over taking them out of US stockpiles.
“We need Tomahawks for the United States of America too. We have a lot of them, but we need them. I mean, we can’t deplete for our country,” he said.
Trump-Putin Face-to-Face Meeting
Donald Trump said that he plans to sit down with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, in Hungary within two weeks.
Trump alluded to next week’s meeting between Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, saying the top diplomats will determine the time and place for the presidential tete-a-tete.
“Maybe it’s already set up. They’ve already spoken,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office, alluding to his meeting with Putin.
Trump is slated to sit down with Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Friday at the White House and said he would inform the Ukrainian president about his “very good” phone call with Putin during tomorrow’s meeting.
“We have a problem. They don’t get along too well, those two, and it’s sometimes tough to have meetings. So we may do something where we’re separate, but separate but equal,” Trump said.
The US president said Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban would be hosting his Budapest meeting with Putin.
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