Trump says US making progress with Russia, coy on Putin talks

Moscow: US President Donald Trump said he believed the United States was making progress in its talks to end the war between Russia and Ukraine, but declined to provide details about any communications he had had with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One on Monday AEDT, Trump indicated that the two men had been in contact; that would mark the first officially acknowledged conversation between Putin and a US president since early 2022.

Donald Trump last year repeatedly vowed to end the Russia-Ukraine war on “day one” of his presidency.

Asked whether he had had his conversation with Putin since he became president on January 20 or before, Trump said: “I’ve had it. Let’s just say I’ve had it ... And I expect to have many more conversations. We have to get that war ended.

“If we are talking, I don’t want to tell you about the conversations,” Trump said. “I do believe we’re making progress. We want to stop the Ukraine-Russia war.”

Trump said the US was in touch with both Russia and Ukraine. “We’re talking to both sides,” he said.

Trump has promised to end the war but has yet to publicly set out how he would do so.

In an interview with the New York Post on Saturday AEDT, Trump said he had “better not say” how many times he and Putin had spoken and did not disclose when the latest conversation had taken place.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told the TASS state news agency that “many different communications are emerging”.

“I personally may not know something, [may] be unaware of something,” Peskov said when asked by TASS to comment. “Therefore, in this case, I can neither confirm nor deny it.”

US National Security Adviser Mike Waltz also declined to elaborate when asked about communications between the two countries.

“There certainly are a lot of sensitive conversations going on,” Waltz said on NBC News.

Trump has repeatedly said he wants to end the war and that he will meet Putin to discuss it, though a date or venue for a summit is still not publicly known. Trump told reporters on Monday AEDT that he would meet with Putin at an appropriate time.

Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates were seen by Russia as possible venues, Reuters reported earlier this month.

In the coming days, a flurry of US officials are heading to Europe, in part to discuss the war. They include Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Secretary of Defence Pete Hegseth, Vice President J.D. Vance and Keith Kellogg, the special envoy for the Ukraine war.

Waltz indicated that Trump would be willing to use sanctions and tariffs to coax Putin to the negotiating table.

Vladimir Putin and Trump have spoken about seven times since Trump’s first term ended in 2021, journalist Bob Woodward has said. Credit: AP

Waltz said US and Ukrainian officials would discuss the US gaining access to Ukraine’s rare earth resources as compensation for US aid to the eastern European ally.

On June 14, Putin set out his opening terms for an immediate end to the war: Ukraine must drop its NATO ambitions and withdraw its troops from the entirety of the territory of four Ukrainian regions claimed and mostly controlled by Russia.

Reuters reported in November that Putin was open to discussing a peace deal with Trump but had ruled out making any major territorial concessions and insisted that Kyiv abandon ambitions to join NATO.

Putin last spoke to former US president Joe Biden in February 2022, shortly before the Russian leader ordered thousands of troops into Ukraine.

In his 2024 book War, Washington Post journalist Bob Woodward reported that Trump had direct conversations as many as seven times with Putin after he left the White House in 2021.

Asked if that were true in an interview with Bloomberg last year, Trump said: “If I did, it’s a smart thing.” The Kremlin denied Woodward’s report.

Reuters, The Washington Post and Axios reported separately that Trump and Putin spoke in early November. The Kremlin also denied those reports.

On Saturday AEDT, Trump said he would probably meet Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky this week to discuss ending the war. Zelensky told Reuters he wanted Ukraine to supply the US with rare earths and other minerals in return for financially supporting its war effort.

Putin sent thousands of troops into Ukraine in 2022, calling it a “special military operation” to protect Russian speakers and counter what he said was a grave threat to Russia from potential Ukrainian membership of the NATO military alliance.

Ukraine and its Western backers, led by the US, said the invasion was an imperial-style land grab and vowed to defeat Russian forces.

Moscow controls a chunk of Ukraine about the size of the American state of Virginia and is advancing at the fastest pace since the early days of the 2022 invasion.

With Lidia Kelly and Gram Slattery

Reuters

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