US PRESIDENT-ELECT DONALD Trump spoke to Russian leader Vladimir Putin and urged him not to escalate the war in Ukraine, according to a report by The Washington Post on Sunday, but the Kremlin has since denied the call took place.
Trump held the call from his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida on Thursday, just days after his stunning election victory over Democratic rival Kamala Harris, the report said.
However, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told journalists that the Washington Post report was “simply false information”, denying any phone call took place.
Steven Cheung, Trump’s communications director, did not confirm the exchange, telling AFP in a written statement that “we do not comment on private calls between President Trump and other world leaders.”
The Post, citing several people familiar with the call who spoke on the basis of anonymity, reported that Trump had reminded Putin of America’s sizable military presence in Europe.
They said he also expressed an interest in further conversations to discuss “the resolution of Ukraine’s war soon.”
Trump also spoke by phone with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on Sunday and the pair “agreed to work together towards a return to peace in Europe,” according to Scholz’s spokesman.
Trump’s election is set to have a major bearing on the almost three-year Ukraine conflict, as he insists on a quick end to the fighting and casts doubt on Washington’s multi-billion dollar support for Kyiv.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy spoke with Trump on Wednesday, with the Republican’s billionaire backer Elon Musk also notably joining them on the call.
The outgoing Democratic administration of President Joe Biden has confirmed that it will send as much aid as possible to Ukraine before Trump’s inauguration on January 20.
On Sunday, Biden’s National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said the White House aims “to put Ukraine in the strongest possible position on the battlefield so that it is ultimately in the strongest possible position at the negotiating table.”
This would include using the remaining $6 billion of funding for Ukraine available, Sullivan said.
The Russian government has given a cautious but mostly positive response to Trump’s return, with Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov saying Sunday: “The signals are positive… At least he’s talking about peace, and not about confrontation.”
During his campaign, Trump repeatedly vowed to quickly end the Ukraine war — even before he is sworn into office — but without detailing his thinking.
Trump and his allies have railed against US funding for Ukraine, while insinuating that it helps fund a corrupt pro-war nexus of defense companies and foreign policy hawks.
Trump’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., shared a clip Saturday on Instagram which showed Zelensky standing next to the president-elect with a caption reading: “POV (point of view): You’re 38 days from losing your allowance.”
Any quick deal in Ukraine is expected to require Kyiv to cede some of the territory it has lost to Russian invaders in Ukraine’s south and east.
A former adviser to Trump, Bryan Lanza, told the BBC on Saturday that Ukraine had to give up any ambition of regaining Crimea, for instance, which was occupied by Russia in 2014.
Kyiv, though facing a manpower shortage and uncertainty over US support, has steadfastly opposed giving up territory and its European allies and weapons suppliers such as Britain and France are known to be nervous about unilateral moves by Trump.
Zelenskyy has said that giving up land or meeting other demands from the Kremlin would only embolden Putin and provoke more aggression, a view shared by many European allies.
Trump “briefly raised the issue of land” in his call with Putin, the Post reported, without further details.
In recent months, both sides in the war have made moves seen as possible efforts to gain leverage ahead of eventual negotiations, with Ukraine seizing a chunk of Russian territory and Moscow’s troops making advances in Ukraine.
This weekend brought the biggest drone attacks yet from both sides.
Russia launched 145 drones at Ukraine overnight, Zelenskyy said, while Russia said it had downed 34 Ukrainian drones targeting Moscow on Sunday.
Meanwhile, air raid sirens wailed across Ukraine early this morning as Russian strikes killed at least six people, a day after record drone attacks by both sides and US president-elect Donald Trump reportedly urging Russia’s Vladimir Putin not to escalate the conflict.
Trump will not be inaugurated until January and for the moment on the battlefield and in the skies, the conflict shows no signs of subsiding.
Early this morning air alerts wailed across Ukraine after Russian air strikes killed at least six people in the south.
“Attention! Missile danger throughout Ukraine! MiG-31K takeoff,” Ukraine’s air force said in a post on Telegram confirming Russian bombers were airborne.
Earlier, five people were killed in the southern city of Mykolaiv, while a sixth died in Zaporizhzhia in an attack that wounded more than a dozen others, regional governors said.
The strikes came a day after Russia launched 145 drones at Ukraine overnight Saturday into Sunday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said – more than in any single night during the conflict.
Russia also said it had downed 34 Ukrainian attack drones targeting Moscow on Sunday, the largest attempted attack on the capital since the start of the war in 2022.
US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said Sunday that the White House was to spend its remaining $6 billion of funding for Ukraine before Trump takes office, warning of the risks of ending US support for Kyiv.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that so far following the US election “the signals are positive.”
“At least he’s talking about peace, and not about confrontation,” he said in an interview with state media published Sunday.
But he cautioned that Trump was “less predictable” than Harris or Biden” and “what will happen next, it’s hard to say.”
Trump has not said how he intends to strike a peace deal or what terms he is proposing.
Russia’s Putin has demanded Ukraine withdraw from swathes of its eastern and southern territory as a precondition to peace talks.
People familiar with Thursday’s call said Trump had briefly raised the question of land with Putin.
Following Trump’s election, Zelensky warned there should be “no concessions” to Putin. Ceding land or giving in to any of Moscow’s other hardline demands would only embolden the Kremlin and lead to more aggression, he said.
Zelensky has previously said that without US aid Kyiv would lose the conflict.
On the ground, Russia has been slowly advancing for weeks.
Moscow’s troops last month made their largest territorial gains since March 2022, according to AFP analysis of data from the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War (ISW).
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