U.S. President Donald Trump initiated a telephone conversation with Russian President Vladimir Putin, prior to Trump’s Dec. 28 meeting with acting President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the Russian President’s website reported. According to the Russian President’s website, the call went on for an hour and fifteen minutes, though Trump later claimed that it was two hours, and even two and a half hours.
Kremlin aide Yury Ushakov spoke to reporters about the results of the call shortly afterwards, and emphasized that the Presidents exchanged warm Christmas and New Year’s greetings. He noted that President Trump was very attentive to Russia’s assessment of the situation and the opportunity for peace, and continued collaboration between the two nations in the spirit of the Russian-American agreements during the Anchorage summit. “The U.S. President wished to discuss the current developments in the context of the Ukrainian conflict and its potential resolution,” Ushakov said, and he “wished to discuss these matters before his in-person meeting with Zelenskyy.”
Ushakov assessed that “Trump paid close attention to Russia’s assessment of the realistic prospects for an agreement, and to our President’s detailed rationale for the fundamental importance of continuing to build upon the Russian-American understandings established during the Anchorage summit….”
He went on: “Most significantly, the Russian and U.S. Presidents share a broadly similar view that the temporary ceasefire proposed by Ukraine and Europe—under the pretext of preparing for a referendum or other such measures—would merely prolong the conflict and risk a renewed escalation on the battlefield.…”
