First phone call between President-elect Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin to talk about Ukraine. The conversation dates back to last Thursday, two days after the tycoon’s victory in the elections, as revealed by the Washington Post.
According to the newspaper, Trump advised the “tsar” not to escalate the war in Ukraine and reminded him of Washington’s significant military presence in Europe. Almost a warning, a display of muscles for deterrent purposes, even if for now it does not seem to have slowed down the brutal Russian offensive, as the latest massive drone attack suggests. In their phone call the two leaders discussed the goal of peace on the European continent, and the American president-elect expressed interest in further conversations to discuss “a rapid resolution of the war in Ukraine.” A first approach, therefore, which should be followed by others.
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Trump told NBC on Thursday that he spoke with about 70 world leaders after the election, including Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, in a call that also included Elon Musk, but did not disclose the call with Putin. The Ukrainian government was informed of the phone call with the “tsar” and did not object to the conversation, according to the Washington Post. Trump’s first calls with world leaders are not taking place with the support of the State Department and US government interpreters. Trump transition team distrusts career government officials. Moscow initially reacted coldly to the tycoon’s victory.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov had told reporters that Putin had no intention of calling the president-elect of “a hostile country directly and indirectly involved in a war against our state.” But last Thursday the “czar” publicly congratulated Trump on his victory, praising his “manly response” to the attempted assassination in Pennsylvania and saying he was “ready” to talk to him. As it happened on the same day. Russia continues to raise glimmers of peace in Ukraine after the “positive signals” arriving from Trump’s America, while the drone battle rages on the ground and an army of Moscow soldiers prepares to reconquer the territory lost in the Russian Kursk. The blood price is dramatic: London estimates that 700,000 Kremlin soldiers have been killed or wounded since the start of the war, while Moscow claims the killing of over a thousand Ukrainian soldiers in the last 24 hours alone. And more blood will soon flow in the Kursk: the Russians have amassed an assault force of 50 thousand men, including the North Koreans sent by Pyongyang, which is preparing for the offensive against the Ukrainian troops who occupied parts of the region in the August blitz. Since then the Russians have limited themselves to containing the attacks, without launching a real ground operation. American and Ukrainian sources revealed to the New York Times that the attack would be imminent, likely already “in the next few days”. The army of 50,000 “did not affect the Russian deployment in eastern Ukraine”, the sources underline. The North Koreans, who “are training in the use of artillery and tactical infantry maneuvers, are equipped with Russian weapons and uniforms.” According to the latest Western intelligence estimates, there would be 10,000 of them.
In this context, drones continue to dominate. In an unprecedented attack, Russian forces deployed a record 145 drones, mostly Iranian Shahed kamikazes, in Ukraine in 24 hours, causing damage and injuries. Kiev’s air defenses – the military announced – shot down 62: another 67 are missing, 10 have left Ukrainian airspace in the direction of Moldova, Belarus and Russia. In one week, 600 drones were launched into the assault, President Volodymyr Zelensky denounced. On the other front, the Russians announce the destruction of 70 aircraft, over half in the Moscow region – also a record – which caused injuries and the closure of the capital’s airports for several hours. Despite the climate of war, Moscow sends conciliatory messages. Donald Trump’s desire to reach an agreement that leads to peace in Ukraine indicates that “the signs are positive”, said Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov. “It is difficult to say what will happen,” he specified, but the president-elect “does not talk about confrontation, he does not say he wants to inflict a strategic defeat on Russia, and this distinguishes him favorably from the current administration.”
