President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin have finished a phone call which lasted more than an hour and was described by the White House as “going well.”
The Russian state-controlled news agency TASS, citing Kremlin spokesperson Dimitri Peskov, said the call wrapped at approximately 11:30 am ET, roughly 90 minutes after it started.
A White House official confirmed that the call had been completed but would not confirm the time at which the two presidents finish speaking. The official said a readout of the call would be issued “soon.”
White House Deputy Chief of Staff Dan Scavino had previously confirmed the status of the conversation in a post on X (formerly Twitter) in which he stated that the call started at 10 a.m. ET, with Trump speaking from the Oval Office.
“The call is going well, and still in progress,” he added.
Scavino posted again to say that the call was “still in progress” as of 11:32 a.m. ET, more than 90 minutes after it had begun, apparently contradicting the Russian news report. The Independent has reached out to the White House to clarify the discrepancy.
The conversation between the leaders had been initially scheduled to begin an hour earlier, but was delayed while Putin was busy addressing oligarchs at a business conference. He had been talking about how Western sanctions would continue to try to exclude Russia from the global economy.
The Russian leader is infamous for being late to calls or meetings with foreign leaders — a power move intended to display dominance.
The call between Trump and Putin, the second such conversation since Trump was sworn in for a second term in the White House in January, comes as Trump has been pushing both the Russian dictator and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to accept a 30-day ceasefire proposal that would, in theory, lead to more comprehensive negotiations to end the three-year-old war that began when Putin ordered Russian forces to invade and decapitate Zelensky’s government in February 2022.
According to Bloomberg, Putin is expected to demand that Trump halt all American aid to Kyiv — and potentially push America’s European allies to halt their own aid efforts — as a precondition for Russia to honor any temporary ceasefire.
European leaders have expressed concern that such a concession would allow Russia to rearm during any pause in fighting, leaving Kyiv unable to properly defend itself.
In a Monday evening phone call with Trump, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer warned that Ukraine must be put in the “strongest possible position” in order to secure a “just and lasting peace.”
A spokesperson for the prime minister said Starmer “updated the president on his coalition of the willing call with international leaders that took place on Saturday” and “reiterated that all must work together to put Ukraine in the strongest possible position to secure a just and lasting peace.”
Trump is reportedly considering offering Putin an inducement in the form of American recognition of Russian sovereignty over Crimea, the region of Ukraine that Russian troops illegally annexed in 2014.
Semafor reported on Monday that U.S. officials have also discussed the possibility of the Trump administration pushing the United Nations to recognize Russian control of the peninsula, citing a pair of administration sources. But National Security Council spokesperson Brian Hughes denied the reporting, telling the outlet that the administration has “made no such commitments.”
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Source: independent.co.uk