New Delhi: US President Donald Trump Wednesday spoke with Russian President Vladimir Putin, where the two leaders promised to immediately begin negotiations to end the war with Ukraine.
“I just had a lengthy and highly productive phone call with President Vladimir Putin of Russia. We discussed Ukraine, the Middle East, Energy, Artificial Intelligence (AI), the power of the Dollar, and various other subjects,” said the US President in a lengthy post on social media platform Truth Social.
Trump added: “We each talked about the strengths of our respective Nations, and the great benefit that we will someday have in working together. But first, as we both agreed, we want to stop the millions of deaths taking place in the War with Russia/Ukraine.”
This is the first call between the two leaders since the start of Trump’s second term in office. The call comes hours after Secretary of Defence Pete Hegseth ruled out North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) membership for Kyiv, and called the return to pre-2014 borders an “illusionary goal” that will prolong the war.
Russia began its “special military operation” against Ukraine in February 2022, and the war will soon complete 3 years. Trump in his post stated that the war would not have begun if he were President at the time, and went on to thank Putin for the call.
“The topic of a settlement in Ukraine was also discussed. Donald Trump spoke in favor of a speedy end to hostilities and a peaceful solution to the problem. Vladimir Putin, for his part, mentioned the need to eliminate the root causes of the conflict and agreed with Donald Trump that a long-term settlement could be achieved through peaceful negotiations,” said the Kremlin in a readout published after the call.
The readout added: “The Russian President invited the US President to visit Moscow and expressed his readiness to receive American officials in Russia on areas of mutual interest, including the Ukrainian settlement.”
Trump to speak to Zelenskyy
Trump said that he planned to inform Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of the details discussed in the call with Putin and directed Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Director of the CIA John Ratcliffe, National Security Adviser Michael Waltz and Ambassador and Special Envoy Steven Witkoff to lead the negotiations for a settlement between Ukraine and Russia.
“President Putin even used my very strong Campaign motto of, ‘COMMON SENSE’. We both believe very strongly in it. We agreed to work together, very closely, including visiting each other’s Nations,” said Trump on Truth Social.
The call lasted almost an hour and a half, according to Kremlin spokesperson Dmitri S. Peskov. The news of a call between Trump and Putin, and the US clarifying its position on the end of the war puts Zelenskyy in a difficult position.
The Ukrainian President spent most of 2024 building global backing for his 10-point peace plan, which includes the return of territory held by Russia, as well as security guarantees from the West, counting on membership to NATO.
NATO’s Article V is a collective defence clause, which indicates that an attack on one country is an attack on all.
However, with Hegseth ruling out NATO membership during his address to the Ukraine Defence Contact Group in Brussels, it seems Zelenskyy’s vision of a Kyiv, a member of the US-led military alliance, is unlikely to come to fruition.
For Zelenskyy, any peace must include the return of Ukrainian territories held by Russia, including the Crimean peninsula, which has been occupied by Russia since 2014. The previous US administration under President Joseph R. Biden Jr. believed any concessions for peace were to be made by Kyiv. Trump’s discussions with Putin and Hegseth’s comments marked a change to America’s policy with regards to the war in Europe.
Hegseth has also made it clear that any peacekeepers potentially deployed to Ukraine will not contain American troops, will have to be backed by the Europeans and outside the scope of Article V of NATO.
The call comes a day after an American citizen and school teacher, Marc Fogel, was released by Russia in exchange for Alexander Vinnik, a suspected cybercrime kingpin. Vinnik was arrested in Greece in 2017 and extradited to the US under suspicion of laundering $4 billion through a cryptocurrency exchange, according to media reports.
(Edited by Zinnia Ray Chaudhuri)