President Trump has said that he has spoken to President Putin about the war in Ukraine in the first confirmed talks between a US president and the Russian leader for almost three years.
Without revealing details, Trump said that he was “making progress” towards bringing peace to Ukraine. “We want to stop the Ukraine-Russia war,” he said on board Air Force One.
Trump would not reveal, however, if his conversation with Putin had taken place before or after he was inaugurated as president on January 20. “I’ve had it. Let’s just say I’ve had it . . . And I expect to have many more conversations [with Putin],” he said.
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Putin is not known to have spoken directly to a US president since his telephone call with President Biden 12 days before Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, triggering the biggest war in Europe since 1945.
Trump said on Friday that he would “probably meet” President Zelensky of Ukraine this week. He gave no other details and it was unclear if he was referring to a face-to-face meeting or a video call. Zelensky said that US officials were due in Kyiv before the Munich Security Conference, which begins on Friday.
The Ukrainian leader will also meet JD Vance, the US vice-president, in Munich. Vance, who has been a staunch opponent of US military assistance for Kyiv, said on the eve of Russia’s all-out invasion that he did not “really care what happens to Ukraine, one way or the other”.
Trump himself on Monday left open the possibility that Ukraine “may be Russian someday.”
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“They may make a deal, they may not make a deal. They may be Russian someday, or they may not be Russian someday,” Trump said in an interview with Fox News.
“But we are going to have all this money in there and I say I want it back,” he added suggesting US aid should be traded for Kyiv’s natural resources — such as rare minerals.
Keith Kellogg, Trump’s envoy on Ukraine and Russia, is expected to travel to Ukraine on February 20, after the conference. Unconfirmed reports say Kellogg may go to Moscow before his trip to the Ukrainian capital.
The Kremlin declined to say if Putin had spoken to Trump. However, a senior Russian official sought to downplay expectations of an imminent ceasefire in Ukraine. “It is important that words be backed up by practical steps that take into account Russia’s legitimate interests, demonstrating a readiness to eradicate the root causes of the crisis and recognise the new realities,” Mikhail Galuzin, a Russian deputy foreign minister, said. “Concrete proposals of this nature have not yet been received.”
Sergei Rybakov, another deputy Russia foreign minister, said Moscow would not agree to any peace terms that did not include the “full implementation” of the Kremlin’s demands.
Putin said last year that there could be no peace unless Ukraine recognised Russian rule in four regions in its east and south, including two big cities that Moscow does not control, as well as in Crimea, which the Kremlin annexed in 2014.
He also demanded that Ukraine drop its ambitions to join Nato and the scrapping of western sanctions against Russia. Pro-Kremlin figures and analysts have said that Putin’s main aim in Ukraine is to install a Moscow-friendly government in Kyiv.
Trump has yet to outline his plan to end the war but there are concerns in Kyiv and other European capitals that he may force Ukraine to cede territory in exchange for peace.
“It will be difficult for Kellogg to identify a solution which ends the fighting without giving Putin what he wants to some degree, including the opportunity to regroup and attack Ukraine again down the road,” said Sean Monaghan, a European defence and security analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.
He also said Trump’s probable reduction of US military assistance to Kyiv would “reinforce Putin’s sense that ‘while the West has the watches, he has the time.’ He thinks he can outlast Ukraine and the West in a protracted struggle.”
Trump has said that he wants to make a deal for Kyiv to provide the United States with access to Ukraine’s rare earth and critical minerals in exchange for Washington’s continuing military support.
Zelensky said on Friday that Ukraine was open to jointly developing its “priceless” resources with the US. The deal was first floated by Zelensky in a “victory plan” he presented to western leaders last year. “If we are talking about a deal, then let’s do a deal, we are only for it,” Zelensky told Reuters. He said about half of Ukraine’s rare earth deposits were on territory occupied by Russian forces but 80 per cent of Ukraine’s mineral resources were controlled by Kyiv.
Rare earths are a group of 17 metals vital for the production of electric motors and consumer electronics.
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Zelensky insists there can be no viable long-term peace in Ukraine without western security assurances to deter a new Russian invasion. Trump would want to see European countries provide troops for any peacekeeping operation in Ukraine after a ceasefire, the Wall Street Journal reported in December, citing US officials.
However, Moscow said it was opposed to any deal involving the deployment of peacekeeping troops in Ukraine and their presence could spark an “uncontrolled escalation”.
“Without Russia’s consent, it will be impossible to implement this,” Volodymyr Fesenko, a political analyst in Kyiv, said.
One other option would be for western counties to sign agreements on strengthening security ties with Kyiv such as the 100-year partnership deal that was signed by Britain and Ukraine last month.
“It’s the dream of Ukrainian diplomats to sign an agreement with the United States either on security guarantees or on co-operation in the field of security and for this agreement to be ratified by Congress,” Fesenko added. “But so far, it seems that the Americans do not want to take on these obligations.”
Although no date has been set for a summit between Trump and Putin, Russia considers Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates as possible venues for talks.
