Trump says ‘didn’t make any progress at all’ with Putin during phone call

WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump on Thursday (local time) said that in his recent phone call with Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin, he had made “no progress at all” on efforts to end the conflict in Ukraine.

Speaking to reporters on Thursday (US local time), Trump stated that over their phone call he and Putin discussed a lot of things, including Iran and the Russia-Ukraine conflict. “We had a call. It was a pretty long call. We talked about a lot of things including Iran and we also talked about, as you know, the war with Ukraine. I’m not happy about that”, Trump said.

Asked whether any progress was made on potential deal to end the conflict in Ukraine , Trump responded, “No. I didn’t make any progress with him today at all.” During their telephonic conversation, Putin made it clear that Russia will “not back down” on its goal of “eliminating” the root cause of the war in Ukraine, Al Jazeera reported

President Trump on call with Putin: “I didn’t make any progress with him today at all.” pic.twitter.com/02rcktkB2p

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“Russia will not back down”, Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov told reporters after Putin’s call with Trump. However, he added that Putin expressed “readiness” to “seek a political and negotiated solution to the conflict. “Putin emphasised that Russia seeks to achieve its goals in Ukraine and remove the “root causes” of the conflict, Ushakov said.

The “root cause” here refers to Ukraine’s push to join NATO, following which Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 to prevent Kyiv from joining the US-centric alliance. The Trump-Putin phone call between two leaders came a day after the US paused promised weapon deliveries to Kyiv, including air defence missiles and precision-guided artillery, Al Jazeera reported.

On June 27, Putin said Russia will no longer engage in “one-sided” games with the West, RT reported. He made these remarks while addressing a press conference on the sidelines of the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) summit in Minsk.

According to RT, Putin said that Western nations have repeatedly betrayed Russia by not honouring their promises regarding NATO expansion and resolving the Ukraine conflict. He emphasised that NATO is using alleged Russian “aggressiveness” to justify plans to increase defence spending to 5 per cent of member states’ GDP and bolster military presence in Europe.

“They [the West] are turning everything upside down,” Putin said. “No one is saying a word about how we’ve come up to the Russian special military operation,” he continued, asserting that the Ukraine conflict’s origins date back decades, when Moscow was “blatantly lied to” about NATO’s intentions. “What followed was one expansion wave after another,” he added.

Putin said Russia’s repeated security concerns regarding NATO’s activities were ignored by the West. He said, “Isn’t it aggressive behaviour? That is precisely aggressive behaviour, which the West does not want to pay attention to.” The Russian President also accused Western nations of supporting separatist and terrorist movements as long as they targeted Russia. (ANI)