Already a first exchange between Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump? Since his victory in the American presidential election, Donald Trump has increased his calls regarding the war in Ukraine. Including with the Russian president, says the Washington Post. According to anonymous sources cited by the American newspaper, the Republican spoke this Thursday with the head of the Kremlin, and asked him not to provoke an escalation in Ukraine. A spokesperson for the US president-elect’s transition team said in a statement to AFP that it would not “comment on private calls between President Trump and other leaders”.
This Monday, however, the Kremlin denied the information from Washington Postcalling it an “invention.” “This absolutely does not correspond to reality, it is a pure invention”, “it is simply false information”, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told journalists. “At the moment, there are no concrete plans” for such a discussion, he said. Last week, the two men said they were ready to talk.
“For the moment, no signal has arrived”
The Kremlin estimated this Sunday that the Republican had sent “positive signals” during the campaign regarding the conflict, since he spoke of a possible “peace” and did not show a “will to inflict a strategic defeat on the Russia”. According to the Washington PostDonald Trump and Vladimir Putin discussed the goal of peace on the European continent, and the new US president said he hoped to have follow-up conversations to discuss “resolving the war in Ukraine soon.”
According to Dmitri Peskov, Vladimir Putin repeated last week “that he is open to all negotiations” with the West on Ukraine, but “no signal has been sent” by them. “If they say that signals will come, we have to wait for them. For the moment, no signal has arrived,” he added. Donald Trump would also have reminded Vladimir Putin of the extent of the American military presence in Europe.
A first Trump-Zelensky interview
Very critical of the billions of dollars released for Ukraine, Donald Trump had already spoken on Wednesday with Volodymyr Zelensky. An exchange in which billionaire Elon Musk participated. The Ukrainian president described this telephone exchange as “excellent” and had “agreed to maintain a close dialogue” with Donald Trump. But according to a highly placed Ukrainian source with AFP, the two leaders “did not really discuss anything substantial, it was a conversation to greet each other.”
For its part, the German Chancellery indicated that Olaf Scholz had spoken on Sunday with Donald Trump and that they both said they were “ready to work together for the return of peace to Europe”. Foreign policy issues will be on the menu of the meeting between Joe Biden and Donald Trump scheduled in the Oval Office on Wednesday to begin the transfer of power.
Zelensky “38 days away from losing [ses] allowances?
The United States will spend the remaining six billion dollars dedicated to Ukraine before Donald Trump comes to power, national security adviser Jake Sullivan said this Sunday, warning of the risks linked to the shutdown of American support for kyiv.
Donald Trump, who will return to the White House on January 20, has regularly claimed to be able to end the war in Ukraine “in one day”, without ever detailing how he would go about it. But this could probably involve an agreement that would require kyiv to cede part of its territory to Moscow, a concession impossible to envisage on the Ukrainian side. This question would have been raised during the interview between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin, according to the Washington Post.
A very negative indicator for the future of Ukraine, however, came this Saturday from Donald Trump’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr, who shared on Instagram a photo of Volodymyr Zelensky alongside his father. With the caption “POV” (point of view, or point of view): “you are 38 days away from losing your benefits”, in reference to the billions spent by the United States to help kyiv.