US President Donald J. Trump and Vladimir Putin shakes hands at a one-to-one meeting at the Presidential Palace in Helsinki, Finland, 16 July 2018. Photo: EPA-EFE / ALEXEY NIKOLSKY
US President Donald Trump had a “lengthy and highly productive” phone call with Vladimir Putin on Wednesday, CNN reported before the conversation was confirmed by both Trump and the Kremlin.
In a post on Truth Social, Trump said he and Putin had discussed “the great benefit” Moscow and Washington “will someday have in working together”, agreeing to stop what Trump said were “millions of deaths” taking place in Ukraine.
“We agreed to work together, very closely, including visiting each other’s Nations,” Trump wrote, adding that he and Putin had agreed to have their teams “start negotiations immediately”, something Trump said he would inform Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky of in a separate call “right now”.
Trump also thanked Putin for his “time and effort with respect to this call” and for his cooperation in the release of an imprisoned American teacher on Tuesday from Russian custody during an unannounced visit to Moscow by US President Donald Trump’s Special Envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said the call had lasted “nearly an hour and a half”, during which Putin had invited Trump to visit Moscow and “expressed readiness” to welcome US officials to Russia to discuss matters “of mutual interest” including a resolution to the war in Ukraine, and had agreed with Trump that “the time has come” for Russia and the US to work together, Interfax reported.
This is the first confirmed phone call between Putin and Trump since the latter’s inauguration on 20 January, although Trump told The New York Post on 8 February that he had spoken to Putin to begin negotiating an end to the war in Ukraine, a claim that the Kremlin “neither confirmed nor denied”.
Zelensky said last week that he was prepared to meet with Putin in person if necessary to negotiate an end to the war, while also stressing that it was essential he meet Trump in person before the US president met with Putin, “otherwise it will look like a dialogue about Ukraine without Ukraine”.