An important telephone conversation took place, with which the White House pinned hopes for progress in the clearly stalled reconciliation process between Russia and Ukraine. Donald Trump contacted Vladimir Putin. At the time of signing the number, the conversation had begun, but had not yet ended. Before the conversation, the Kremlin told reporters that a face-to-face meeting between the two leaders was not yet being prepared.
After the meeting of the Russian and Ukrainian delegations in Istanbul, there has been a change in the rhetoric of the White House team. Earlier, the Trump team signaled that everything was fine in principle, and the negotiation process was progressing, albeit with difficulties, but now they openly admit that American efforts are not having the desired effect. “It seems to us that we are reaching a dead end. That’s why President Trump will be talking to Putin on the phone,” US Vice President Jay Dee Vance admitted frankly and without fuss.
While the Russian and Ukrainian delegations were in Istanbul, Trump himself said that the main thing would be decided in his talks with Putin. He later repeated the same thing in an interview with Fox news. “I don’t think there will be a deal without me, because there is a lot of hatred on both sides. We have good relations with Putin. I think we’ll get a deal. We’re supposed to meet, and we’ll probably schedule it. Because I’m tired of other people doing this,” Trump said. In the same interview, he warned that in case of failure, Russia would face “devastating sanctions” – a threat repeated by both him and lower-ranking American politicians more than once.
However, before the telephone conversation, Dmitry Peskov, the press secretary of the President of the Russian Federation, answered negatively to the question whether a meeting between the two presidents was being prepared. Referring to the phone conversation itself, he said that the conversation would take into account the results of the negotiations in Istanbul. There, we recall, the parties reached only an agreement on a mass exchange of prisoners – a thousand for a thousand. The parties could not agree on any cessation of hostilities or even on their suspension.
The European allies of the United States accuse Russia of unwillingness to negotiate. Perhaps the leaders of European countries talked about this personally with Trump. Before the conversation with Putin, he spoke by phone with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz. Meanwhile, as CNN reported, Trump also had time to talk with Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky. Their conversation was also on the phone. Zelensky, by the way, made very cautious comments on the negotiations in Istanbul. He did not call them either a failure or an achievement. Zelensky limited himself to thanking all those who are helping to carry out the prisoner exchange, which was agreed upon in Istanbul.
The interesting thing about the telephone conversation between the American and Ukrainian presidents is when it happened. Earlier it was reported that Trump would speak with Putin first, and then with Zelensky. CNN does not report why the American president suddenly decided to change the order of conversations with his two interlocutors.