Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump “will talk as much as they see necessary” as the topics of the phone conversation will be Russia-US relations and the settlement in Ukraine, Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Tuesday.
According to Peskov, Putin and Trump will discuss the normalisation of US-Russia relations and the settlement of the conflict in Ukraine. Following their conversation, the Russian leader’s speech is not scheduled, he specified.
As Yuri Ushakov, an aide to the head of state, specified earlier, Russia “does not lose hope” for the implementation of the initiative on a 30-day ceasefire despite Ukrainian drone attacks. “We cling to everything! But they need to talk to each other,” he said.
Poland’s foreign minister wished the US president good luck in his upcoming phone call with his Russian counterpart, public broadcaster TVP reported.
“We will judge the success of the talks with Trump by the quality of peace achieved as a result of the negotiations,” Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski told a meeting of EU foreign ministers in Brussels on Monday.
Sikorski said he hoped Trump would be able to persuade Putin to drop some of his “absurd demands” while showing himself to be a good negotiator, as he extols himself.
The phone call between the US and Russian leaders came a week after Ukraine agreed to a 30-day ceasefire proposed by Washington during a bilateral meeting in Saudi Arabia.
Putin on Thursday welcomed the temporary truce but did not endorse it after meeting with Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff, saying it should lead to a final settlement that addresses the root causes of the conflict.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky urged Ukraine’s allies to put strong pressure on Moscow to prevent further delays. Zelensky expressed gratitude to Saudi Arabia for its mediation efforts and emphasised that Ukraine is ready to work on a structured peace plan as soon as a ceasefire is established.
“Europe is trembling”
The upcoming talks between the Russian and US presidents raise alarming concerns in Europe, according to journalist Julian Röpke, as he expressed in an article for the Bild newspaper’s website under the headline “Europe is trembling from this phone call.”
In particular, he explained, a number of European countries – Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland – fear the withdrawal of the US contingent from Europe after the negotiations, while France and the UK are “preparing for the worst-case scenario.” At the same time, Kyiv is concerned that Trump may agree to hand over to Russia territories that are not under the control of its armed forces.
At the same time, Hungarian Foreign Affairs and External Economic Relations Minister Peter Szijjarto said that normalisation of relations between Russia and the US would improve the situation in Central Europe. He reminded:
“We have a historical experience in the central part of Europe: the better relations between the US and Russia, the better for us.”
The diplomat also added that when Moscow and Washington “had good relations, our situation was much better and our region was much safer.”
