Russian President Vladimir Putin has told Donald Trump in a telephone conversation that Moscow would have to respond to the recent Ukrainian drone attacks, the US president said, as diplomatic overtures and momentum to reach a ceasefire have been overtaken by heavy aerial exchanges in the more than three-year war.
Trump said on Wednesday that the two men “discussed the attack on Russia’s docked airplanes, by Ukraine, and also various other attacks that have been taking place by both sides.”
Putin “did say, and very strongly, that he will have to respond to the recent attack on the airfields”, Trump said in a social media post.
media’s Kimberly Halkett said that Trump described his 85-minute phone call with Putin as “a good conversation but not one that would lead to immediate peace”.
“You have to remember that Donald Trump, when he came into office, was very confident that he could end this war on day one, but here we are now in June and the fact is … this is far from resolved,” she said from the White House.
Earlier Wednesday. Putin showed a flash of anger, referring to the suggestion of direct talks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and to Ukraine’s recent “terrorist acts” on Russian rail lines in the Kursk and Bryansk regions on the countries’ border.
“How can any such [summit] meetings be conducted in such circumstances? What shall we talk about?” Putin demanded in a video call with top Russian officials.
Putin’s refusal to meet Zelenskyy, who while dismissing Russia’s ceasefire proposal as “an ultimatum”, for his part renewed a call for direct talks with his Russian counterpart.
Zelenskyy on Wednesday also seemed to taunt Moscow by saying if it had accepted Kyiv’s offer of a ceasefire, there would have been no launching of the massive drone strike on Russian strategic bombers.
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