Washington DC [US], July 4 (ANI): Russia President Vladimir Putin on Thursday held a telephonic conversation with US President Donald Trump in which he made it clear that Moscow will “not back down” on its goal of “eliminating” the root cause of the war in Ukraine, Al Jazeera reported.
“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 phone call came a day after the US paused promised weapon deliveries to Kyiv, including air defence missiles and precision-guided artillery, Al Jazeera added in its report.
Meanwhile, the Russian occupation governor of Ukraine’s eastern Luhansk region claimed it had been entirely conquered, making it the first of the four eastern Ukrainian regions Russia has annexed that it fully controls, Al Jazeera reported on Thursday.
“Just a couple of days ago, I received a report that the territory of the Luhansk People’s Republic has been 100 per cent liberated,” Leonid Pasechnik said, although not everyone agreed.
On June 21, Putin said that Moscow is not seeking Ukraine’s unconditional surrender, but instead demands recognition of the “realities” on the ground, RT reported.
Speaking during a plenary session at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum on Friday, Putin was asked if Russia was pursuing the kind of unconditional surrender from Ukraine that US President Donald Trump is demanding from Iran.
“We are not seeking the surrender of Ukraine. We insist on recognition of the realities that have developed on the ground,” Putin stated, emphasising that the Ukraine conflict is “completely different” from the situation in the Middle East, according to RT.
He also reiterated his long-held belief that Russians and Ukrainians are “one people.”
“I have said many times that I consider Russians and Ukrainians to be one people, in fact. In this sense, all of Ukraine is ours,” he said, while also asserting that Moscow has never denied Ukraine’s right to be an independent country.
Trump “very disappointed” with Putin, says “don’t think he’s looking to stop” war with Ukraine
Washington [US], July 4 (ANI): US President Trump said late Thursday that he is “very disappointed” with the conversation he had with Russian President Vladimir Putin and reiterated that he made “no progress” in ending the three-year war in Ukraine, The Hill reported.
“I’m very disappointed with the conversation I had today with President Putin because I don’t think he’s there. I’m just saying, I don’t think he’s looking to stop, and that’s too bad,” Trump told reporters late Thursday night after landing back in Washington after his rally in Des Moines, Iowa.
Trump also told reporters he plans to speak to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Friday.
Earlier on Thursday, Trump said that he made “no progress” during his call with Putin in brokering a potential ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine.
“We had a call. It was a pretty long call. Talked about a lot of things, including Iran. And we also talked about, as you know, the war with Ukraine, and I’m not happy about that,” Trump said in the gaggle with journalists.
“I didn’t make any progress with him today at all,” the president stated.
Trump’s call with Putin on Thursday morning was their first conversation since the Defense Department (DOD) paused the delivery of some air defense missiles and munitions to Ukraine after concerns that military stockpiles are running low.
When asked about the halt, the president downplayed the impact of the halt.
“We’re giving weapons … and we’re working with them and trying to help them. But we have — you know Biden emptied out our whole country giving them weapons. And we have to make sure we have enough for ourselves,” Trump said.
Trump pushed the Russian president to end Moscow’s war in Ukraine, but Putin dismissed the effort, according to the Kremlin’s readout of the call.
Putin told Trump that Russia would not divert from its military goals in Ukraine, according to Yuri Ushakov, Putin’s close aide.
Ushakov said the two leaders did not talk about the Pentagon’s pause of weapons shipments to Ukraine and that Putin expressed willingness to continue negotiations with Kyiv.
Trump has long said that he wants to broker a peace deal in Eastern Europe and help end the largest land war in Europe since World War II, but the president has had a hard time getting there.
Russia late Thursday ramped up its attack on Ukraine, launching an overnight assault with over 540 drones on Kyiv and other cities, according to Ukraine’s Air Force.
“Notably, the first air raid alerts in our cities and regions yesterday began to blare almost simultaneously with media reports discussing a phone call between President Trump and Putin. Yet again, Russia is showing it has no intention of ending the war and terror,” Zelensky said in a Friday morning post on the social media platform X.
Russia’s defense ministry said it had intercepted 48 of Ukraine’s drones, The Hill reported.
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