President Donald Trump on Wednesday mentioned he spoke with Russian President Vladimir Putin about ending the conflict in Ukraine, which began three years in the past when Putin’s forces launched a full-scale invasion.
“I simply had a prolonged and extremely productive cellphone name with President Vladimir Putin of Russia,” Trump wrote in a prolonged publish on his conservative social media platform. “We mentioned Ukraine, the Center East, Vitality, Synthetic Intelligence, the ability of the Greenback, and numerous different topics.”
On Ukraine, Trump mentioned he and Putin “agreed to work collectively, very intently, together with visiting one another’s Nations.”
“We now have additionally agreed to have our respective groups begin negotiations instantly, and we are going to start by calling President Zelenskyy, of Ukraine, to tell him of the dialog, one thing which I can be doing proper now,” Trump mentioned. Their cellphone name lasted for about an hour, Zelenskyy’s spokesperson advised ABC Information.
President Donald Trump, Feb. 11, 2025 and Russia’s President Vladimir Putin, Feb. 6, 2025.
AFP by way of Getty Photographs
Trump added, “President Putin even used my very sturdy Marketing campaign motto of, “COMMON SENSE.” We each imagine very strongly in it.”
The dialogue between Trump and Putin lasted an hour and a half, in line with Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov.
“President Trump spoke in favor of an early finish to hostilities and a peaceable resolution to the issue. President Putin, for his half, talked about the necessity to remove the foundation causes of the battle and agreed with Trump {that a} long-term settlement might be achieved via peaceable negotiations,” Peskov advised reporters.
Ukraine’s Zelenskyy has demanded full territorial liberation, and earlier this week signaled a willingness to swap territory with Russia.
U.S. Protection Secretary Pete Hegseth mentioned earlier Wednesday {that a} return to Ukraine’s pre-war borders is an “unrealistic goal” in peace talks, as was NATO membership for Ukraine.
The feedback have been made at his first assembly of the Ukraine Protection Contact Group, a coalition of nations working to help Kyiv, in Brussels.
“President Trump has been clear with the American individuals — and with lots of your leaders — that stopping the combating and reaching an everlasting peace is a high precedence,” Hegseth advised leaders.
President Donald Trump shakes palms with Russian President Vladimir Putin on the finish of a information convention on the Presidential Palace in Helsinki, Finland, July 16, 2018.
Alexander Zemlianichenko/AP
Trump has lengthy maintained, and repeated in his social media publish Wednesday, that the conflict in Ukraine would by no means have occurred had he been president.
He additionally thanked Putin for the discharge of Marc Fogel, an American trainer who had been serving a 14-year jail sentence in Russia after being arrested on drug costs in 2021. Fogel arrived on the White Home late Tuesday evening.
ABC Information’ Ellie Kaufman and Oleksii Pshemyskiy contributed to this report.