Trump says he has spoken to Putin about ending Ukraine war, reports NY Post

MOSCOW: US President Donald Trump said he has spoken to Russian President Vladimir Putin by phone about ending the war in Ukraine, the New York Post reported, the first officially acknowledged conversation between Putin and a US president since early 2022.

Trump, who has promised to end the war but not yet set out in public how he would do so, said last week that the United States was talking to both the Russians and Ukrainians about resolving the conflict, but he gave no additional details.

In an interview from Air Force One on Friday, Trump told the New York Post that he had “better not say” how many times he and Putin had spoken. He also did not disclose when the latest conversation had taken place.

“He (Putin) wants to see people stop dying,” Trump said.

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

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

Asked during an NBC News interview on Sunday when the conversation or conversations between Trump and Putin took place, US National Security Adviser Mike Waltz also declined to say.

“I’m not going to get ahead of the president and there certainly are a lot of sensitive conversations going on,” Waltz said. Trump has repeatedly said he wants to end the war and that he will meet with Putin to discuss it, though the date or venue for a summit is still not publicly known. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are seen by Russia as possible venues for a summit, Reuters reported earlier this month.

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

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

Waltz said US and Ukrainian officials would discuss the United States gaining access to Ukraine’s rare earth resources as compensation for US aid to the eastern European ally.“Those conversations are going to happen this week,” he said.

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 is open to discussing a Ukraine peace deal with Trump but rules out making any major territorial concessions and insists that Kyiv abandon ambitions to join Nato.

The Kremlin has repeatedly urged caution over speculation about contacts with the Trump team over a possible peace deal.

Leonid Slutsky, head of the Russian parliament’s international affairs committee, was cited by the state RIA news agency on Thursday as saying that preparations for such a meeting were at “an advanced stage” and that it could take place in February or March.

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

Washington Post journalist Bob Woodward in his 2024 book “War” 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 to 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 talked in early November. The Kremlin also denied those reports. On Friday, Trump said he would probably meet Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy next week to discuss ending the war. Zelenskiy said that he wanted Ukraine to supply the United States 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 Nato.