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After the US election, Trump and Putin spoke on the phone. Trump is said to have set conditions regarding the Ukraine conflict.
Mar-a-Lago/Moscow – The US President-elect Donald Trump on Thursday (November 7) with the Russian President Wladimir Putin spoken. It was the first telephone conversation between the two men since Trump’s election victory, as several familiar people reported.
During the call, which Trump made from his resort in Florida, he advised the Russian president to… War in Ukraine not to let it escalate. It reminded him of Washington’s significant military presence in Europe, said a person familiar with the call. She, like others interviewed for this story, spoke anonymously.
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After the US election, Trump talks to Putin about a solution to the Ukraine war
The two men discussed the goal of peace on the European continent and Trump expressed interest in follow-up talks to “soon discuss the resolution of the Ukraine war,” according to one of the people.
During his campaign, Trump said he would immediately end the war in Ukraine but gave no details on how he planned to do so. He has privately signaled that he would support a deal in which Russia would retain some conquered territories. During the call, he briefly touched on the subject of territories, according to people familiar with the matter.
The call came amid widespread uncertainty about how Trump will rearrange the world’s diplomatic chessboard with U.S. allies and adversaries after his decisive victory on Tuesday. Trump told NBC on Thursday that he has spoken to about 70 world leaders since the election. Including with the Ukrainian president Wolodymyr Selenskyj – a conversation in which Elon Musk also took part.
US President-elect Donald Trump. © Alie Skowronski/Imago
Trump and Putin talk about the Ukraine war – but without an interpreter
Ukrainian officials were informed of Putin’s call and had no objection to the conversation, two people familiar with the matter said. Ukrainian officials have long understood that Trump would negotiate a diplomatic solution to the war with Putin, the people said.
Trump’s first phone calls with world leaders will not be conducted with the assistance of the State Department and U.S. government interpreters. Trump’s transition team has not yet signed an agreement with the General Services Administration, which is common practice during a presidential transition. Trump and his advisers are suspicious after transcripts of the president’s phone calls during his first term were leaked. “They call [Trump] “Just call me straight away,” said one of the people familiar with the phone calls.
After Trump’s victory in the US election: Russia reacts cautiously
“President Trump clearly won a historic election and world leaders know that America will regain prominence on the world stage. “That’s why leaders have begun to build closer relationships with the 45th and 47th presidents because he represents global peace and stability,” Steven Cheung, Trump’s communications director, wrote in an email.
Moscow initially reacted coolly to Trump’s victory. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters that Putin had no plans to describe the new president as an “unfriendly country that is directly and indirectly involved in a war against our state.”
However, on Thursday, Putin publicly congratulated Trump on his victory, praised his “manly” response to the Pennsylvania attack and said he was “ready” to talk to Trump. Peskov did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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Important relationship: How do Trump and Putin relate to each other now?
Earlier on Sunday, Pavel Zarubin, a journalist for the Russian state television channel Rossiya, published an interview with Peskov. In this, the Kremlin spokesman said that the signs of an improvement in relations under a Trump presidency were “positive”.
“Trump has talked during his campaign about doing everything through deals and how he can make a deal that brings everyone to peace. At least he is talking about peace, not confrontation and the desire to inflict a strategic defeat on Russia,” Peskov said.
At least he’s talking about peace, not confrontation.
While Biden and Harris’ strategy on Ukraine was predictable, Peskov added: “Trump is less predictable, and it is also less predictable to what extent Trump will stick to the statements he made during the campaign. Let’s wait and see.”
A former U.S. official familiar with Putin’s call said Trump probably doesn’t want to come into office facing a new crisis in Ukraine. This could be triggered by an escalation by Russia, “which would prompt him to prevent the war from escalating.”
Friendly but tense: conversation between Zelensky and Trump about the Ukraine war
Trump’s conversation with Zelensky on Wednesday was friendly. But it comes at a time when officials in Kyiv are worried about what a Trump presidency could mean for the war effort, people familiar with the conversation said.
Ukraine needs billions of dollars in economic and military support every month to continue to fend off its larger and better-equipped enemy. Russia has made significant military progress in recent months. Trump has complained about the cost of the war to U.S. taxpayers and privately noted that Ukraine may have part of its territory, such as the Creamfor which peace must be given up.
Tensions between Ukraine and the Trump campaign heightened after Zelensky’s visit to a munitions factory in Pennsylvania in September. The visit to the battleground state was criticized as a political stunt by Trump’s allies, including House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana). He called on Zelensky to fire his ambassador to the United States, Oksana Markarova.
Zelensky is now examining candidates to replace her, an official in Ukraine said. The Ukrainian embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Trump and Putin are on the phone – most recently Ukraine with a large drone attack on Russia
News of the call comes as Ukraine launched a major drone strike on Moscow and five other Russian regions on Sunday. One person was injured and three airports were forced to temporarily suspend operations, officials in Moscow said.
The Russian Defense Ministry announced that its air defense systems intercepted 84 Ukrainian drones over the Moscow, Bryansk, Oryol, Kaluga, Kursk and Tula regions. Thirty-four of those drones were shot down over the Moscow region, the ministry said – the largest Ukrainian drone attack on the capital since Russia invaded the country more than two years ago.
Major counteroffensive in Kursk? 10,000 North Korean soldiers in the Ukraine war
Meanwhile, Ukraine is preparing to hold onto land won in Russia’s Kursk region. Reports are circulating that Moscow is preparing a counteroffensive. US intelligence agencies have reported that there are currently at least 10,000 North Korean troops in the Kursk region, which could support Russia’s attempt to retake lost territory.
Ukrainian commanders have told the Washington Post that North Korean troops are also in Russia’s neighboring Belgorod region.
Trump criticizes Ukraine and calls for an agreement with Russia
While Trump has not offered a plan to end the war, he has said that it would have been beneficial for Ukraine to reach a deal earlier in the war as the country continues to lose soldiers, civilians and infrastructure.
“Any deal — the worst deal — would have been better than what we have now,” Trump said during a speech in North Carolina in September. “If they had made a bad deal it would have been much better. They would have given in a little and everyone would live and every building would be built and every tower would age another 2,000 years.”
Any deal – the worst deal – would have been better than this.
“What deal can we make? It’s destroyed,” he said. “The people are dead. The country is in ruins.”
Siobhán O’Grady in Kiev, Isabelle Khurshudyan in Los Angeles, Catherine Belton in London and Aaron Schaffer in Washington contributed to this report.
To the authors
Ellen Nakashima is a national security reporter at The Washington Post. She was a member of three Pulitzer Prize-winning teams: in 2022 for an investigation into the attack on the U.S. Capitol on January 6, in 2018 for reporting on Russian interference in the 2016 election, and in 2014 for reporting on the hidden extent of state surveillance.
John Hudson is a reporter at The Washington Post covering the State Department and national security. He was part of the team nominated for the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service for their coverage of the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. He has reported from dozens of countries, including Ukraine, China, Afghanistan, India and Belarus.
Josh Dawsey is a political and investigations reporter for The Washington Post. He joined the newspaper in 2017 and previously covered the White House. Previously, he covered the White House for Politico and covered New York City City Hall and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie for the Wall Street Journal.
We are currently testing machine translations. This article was automatically translated from English into German.
This article was first published in English on November 11, 2024 at the “Washingtonpost.com“ appeared – as part of a cooperation, it is now also available in translation to readers of the IPPEN.MEDIA portals.
