The American President Donald Trump and the Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke on the phone for about an hour and a half on Thursday about, among other things, the war in Ukraine, but that yielded little.
Trump told reporters on Thursday evening that he had spoken “at length” with Putin about the war in Ukraine, but also about the situation in Iran. According to Trump, “no progress has been made”.
In the phone call, Putin told the American president that Russia will not abandon its objectives in Ukraine, the Kremlin reported. However, Russia would still be interested in a “negotiated solution”.
Putin emphasized that Russia continues to focus on addressing what he calls the “root causes” of the conflict. He wants to fully annex the Ukrainian regions of Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson, as happened earlier with Crimea. That peninsula was annexed in 2014.
Trump and Putin have had telephone contact more often. Earlier this year, Trump tried to persuade Russia and Ukraine to end the war, which has now lasted almost 3.5 years. So far, little has come of this, apart from a few unilaterally proposed files from the Russian side, which were not observed by either side.