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On Monday, Russia refuted claims of a phone conversation between President Vladimir Putin and US President-elect Donald Trump regarding the Ukraine conflict, asserting that there were no indications of the West being prepared for dialogue on the matter.
In a report published Sunday, The Washington Post detailed that President Trump had spoken with President Putin on Thursday, urging him to refrain from escalating the conflict.
Trump’s victory in the presidential election could significantly alter the nearly three-year-long conflict, prompting concerns about Washington’s ongoing multi-billion-dollar support for Kyiv, which is vital to Ukraine’s defense.
Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin spokesman, rejected the claim, describing it as “false” when speaking to journalists.
Steven Cheung, Trump’s communications director, responded to AFP in writing, saying, “We do not discuss private conversations between President Trump and other world leaders.”
A senior Ukrainian presidential official also stated that Kyiv was “not informed” of any call between Putin and Trump.
During his campaign, Trump said he could end the fighting within hours and indicated he would talk directly with Putin.
Trump has not disclosed how he intends to strike a peace deal on Ukraine or what terms he is proposing.
He spoke by phone with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on Sunday, and the pair “agreed to work together towards a return to peace in Europe”, according to Scholz’s spokesman.
However, Peskov said “there are no preparations” for Putin to hold talks with Scholz and that it was too early to determine whether Europe’s position on Ukraine had changed.
“We see a certain nervousness and various fears among Europeans over the election of Mr Trump as US president,” the Kremlin spokesman said.
Putin last week “repeated that he is open to all talks”, Peskov said, but “no preparation is being carried out now. We have not received any signals”.
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“If they say that some signals will come out, then we have to wait.”
So far, “European leaders are continuing… to try to achieve a strategic defeat of Russia”, Peskov said, while Moscow is “continuing our special operation until we achieve all our aims”.
For some time now, Ukraine has been urging both the US and Europe to give it the green light to deploy long-range weapons that could strike deep within Russian territory.
Sergei Shoigu, who now serves as Russia’s security council secretary after his tenure as defence minister, said last week, “As Kyiv’s fortunes falter on the battlefield, the West is left with a difficult decision to make.”
“Now, when the situation in the theatre of combat is not in Kyiv’s favour, the West is faced with a choice,” Sergei Shoigu, former defence minister and now secretary of Russia’s security council, said last week.
To either keep funding Kyiv and the ongoing devastation of the Ukrainian people or to acknowledge the present circumstances and begin the process of negotiation, Shoigu state.
