Vladimir Putin and Trump discuss 90-minute Ukraine ceasefire call
vladimir putin spoke with Donald Trump for more than 90 minutes on Wednesday, and the call included discussion of a temporary Ukraine ceasefire. Yuri Ushakov said Putin also viewed a possible US ground operation in Iran as dangerous.
Trump later said, "We had a very good conversation, I’ve known him a long time." He said Putin offered help to take Iran’s buried uranium to Russia, and he said he preferred for Putin to be involved with ending the war in Ukraine.
Putin’s warning on Iran
Ushakov said Putin viewed the prospect of a US ground operation in Iran as dangerous, and he said Putin welcomed Trump’s decision to extend a ceasefire in the region. Trump’s remarks tied the call to two wars at once, even as his administration kept pressing the idea that a deal to end the Ukraine conflict was close.
Russia has largely been sidelined in diplomacy over the war in Iran, although western intelligence agencies say Moscow has continued to provide support, including intelligence and drones to strike US targets in the area. That made the Putin-Trump conversation unusual in scope: one call linked the Gaza-to-Iran crisis, the Ukraine war, and a Russian offer to move buried uranium to Russia.
Ukraine ceasefire terms
Trump said he believed a deal to end the Ukraine conflict was close. Putin, meanwhile, has signalled he is prepared to continue fighting until Ukraine cedes territory Russia currently controls in the Donbas, while Volodymyr Zelenskyy has consistently rejected any such concessions.
Yuri Ushakov said Putin had expressed readiness to announce a temporary ceasefire proposed by Trump to coincide with Victory Day celebrations. Earlier on Wednesday, the Kremlin said it would scale back this year’s Victory Day parade because of the threat, and there was no military hardware on display at the parade for the first time in nearly two decades.
Russian and Ukrainian pressure
Putin told Trump that Russian forces retained the initiative and were pushing back Ukrainian positions. Ukrainian long-range drones continue to strike Russian territory almost daily, and those attacks have largely targeted industrial and military sites, including oil infrastructure and logistics hubs.
Over Easter, a temporary ceasefire proposed by Moscow was briefly implemented, but Ukraine has remained sceptical of short-term ceasefire proposals from Moscow. Trump told reporters on Wednesday that Ukraine’s military had been defeated and said the country had lost all their ships and planes, a remark that appeared to confuse Ukraine with Iran.
The next concrete step is whether Moscow and Washington turn Trump’s temporary ceasefire idea into a formal proposal, while Putin’s line on territory and Zelenskyy’s rejection of concessions still leave the fighting and the diplomacy on separate tracks.
