Trump says no progress in Ukraine conflict, after call with Putin

“We talked about a lot of things, including Iran, and we also talked about the war in Ukraine. I'm not happy about that [situation],” said Trump, speaking to reporters at Joint Base Andrews near Washington. “I didn't make any progress with him at all,” he emphasised, referring to the settlement of the conflict.

The Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov mentioned that the telephone conversation on Thursday between Putin and Trump lasted for almost an hour. “Naturally, the issues surrounding Ukraine were discussed. Donald Trump has once again raised the issue of ending the hostilities as soon as possible. In turn, Vladimir Putin noted that we still continued the search for a political, negotiated solution to the conflict. He informed his counterpart on the progress in implementing the humanitarian agreements reached during the second round of direct Russian-Ukrainian talks held in Istanbul. He also noted Russia was willing to pursue negotiations,” read a statement issued by the Russian President’s office.

“Additionally, the President of Russia said that Russia would strive to achieve its goals, namely the elimination of the well-known root causes that led to the current state of affairs, the bitter confrontation that we are seeing now. Russia will not back down from these goals,” the statement added.

According to Ushakov, there was a detailed discussion of the situation surrounding Iran and the state of affairs in the Middle East in general. He asserted that the Russian side emphasised it was crucial to settle any and all contentious issues, differences, and conflicts exclusively via political and diplomatic means.

“The two leaders agreed to maintain contact on the issue between the respective foreign services, defence ministries, and presidential aides,” said the Kremlin aide. It was the fourth conversation between Trump and Putin in a month and a half, making it their sixth discussion since the beginning of the year.