President Trump told The New York Post on Friday that he’s spoken by phone to Russian President Vladimir Putin about the war in Ukraine, a claim the Kremlin said it couldn’t confirm or deny.
When asked how many times he’s talked with the Russian leader, Trump said, “I’d better not say.” Trump said Putin wanted to see an end to the war and the “dying” on the battlefield.
“All those dead people. Young, young, beautiful people. They’re like your kids, two million of them – and for no reason,” the president said. Trump has repeatedly claimed that the actual death toll in Ukraine is in the millions.
The president said he hopes the war ends soon, but it’s unclear how that might happen. “I hope it’s fast. Every day people are dying. This war is so bad in Ukraine. I want to end this damn thing,” he said.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov was asked by Russia’s TASS news agency if he could confirm that Trump and Putin had spoken.
“What can be said about this news: as the administration in Washington unfolds its work, many different communications arise,” Peskov said. “These communications are conducted through different channels. And of course, amid the multiplicity of these communications, I personally may not know something, be unaware of something. Therefore, in this case, I can neither confirm nor deny it.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Sunday that he was willing to enter talks with Russia as long as the West provided security guarantees as part of a future deal, which Russia likely won’t accept since its main demand is for Ukrainian neutrality.
“If I had the understanding that America and Europe will not abandon us and they will support us and give us the security guarantees, I would be prepared for any format of negotiations,” Zelensky said.
Amid the talk about negotiations, fighting continues to rage in eastern Ukraine, and the US continues to supply weapons to fuel the war.
"fighting continues to rage in eastern Ukraine, and the US continues to supply weapons to fuel the war", and this situation is going to continue in foreseeable future. Maybe after a couple of months we may confirm that Trump owns this war. Then he will own the defeat. Some people already started talk about the impeachment. Probably by the end of this year, they'll have more reasons to talk about that. Then the time will come to think about the next elections and the revanche of neocon party.
Trump was already impeached twice, it meant nothing. C0ngress is not gonna remove him from office even if Democrats regain control of both houses in 2026, they'll never have a two-thirds majority.
It is unlikely that neocons will manage to remove him from power but the failure in foreign policy makes his position weaker and all his internal policy projects also weaker. It'll make him cling closer to MIC and waste useless the budget money Also the chances for anyone of his followers to win the next elections would be reduced.
The US will eventually move its capitol and a new nonviolent nation will rise like a phoenix from the ashes of its gory shame.
And when will that happen?
No way to guess. Eventually is when the US goes broke.
Look folks, the propagandist Mikhailovich thinks stopping the Ukraine war, which provides a threat of WW3, to be a failure.
You are unable to write sentences or be coherent. Are you Ukrainian?
There are no American soldiers fighting and dying in Ukraine so 99.99% of Americans don't give a rat's ass about Ukraine, nor could they even find it on a map. Whatever happens in Ukraine won't weaken Trump.
What could destroy him is the economy crashing because of his tariffs… but he'll just tell his followers that inflation is fake news.
The propagandist Mikhailovich has an agenda.
Hey how did those tariffs work out last time? The nations complied with them with almost no complaints. The economy flourished. Do you repeatedly fall for these things?
The fascists propagandist "The Prisoner" has an agenda. Bury trumps mistakes with false information.
If 99.99% of Americans don't care about the war in Ukraine, why he promised them to finish this war in 24 hours?
By promising to finish the war in 24 hours he only made a fool of himself. It was even more stupid than Biden's fart in presence of aristocratic ladies.
He said that because he's an imbecile megalomaniac with a ginormous ego and colossal insecurities, thus the need to constantly run his big mouth to aggrandize himself.
But he didn't need to make any promises about ending the war in Ukraine. He won the election because Biden f-ed up the economy, not because Biden f-ed up Ukraine. Trust me on this one, Americans care much more about the price of eggs than the Ukraine war.
The propagandist Mikhailovich wants to impeach Trump for trying to negotiate. No sale.
Mikhailovich is likely deep state or Ukrainian.
And the Fascista propagandist "The Prisoner" is back to name calling.
Correct. But if Trump should go against MAGA with Israel and against his Neocon side with Russia Russia, congress could sue the 25th Amendment to remove him from office as a "mad man".
How exactly is he going against MAGA with Israel? Last time I checked, the MAGA crowd is pro-Israel. So are evangelicals.
I said "if". Should he go against Israel he will lose support from MAGA. Id di not say that he is going against Israel right now. That's why Evangelicals love him. but should he go against Israel and side with the Palestinians that might be the only way MAGA might think about using the 25th Amendment
He’s lost some evangelicals over the years. The evangelicals who still support him have long since established there’s nothing he can’t do that would put them off him.
Personally, if I was of that mindset and not a preterist, I might conclude that he’s the Beast described in Revelation. Especially since he just hired an obvious false prophet (Paula White-Cain) to help him promote himself.
You are probably right. They have become total Christian Zionists and religion does not really matter that much any more, just power, just like their Jewish counterparts.
Maybe you will never attain reasoning ability, propagandist.
This war was entirely caused by Crook Biden, with his meddling in Ukraine going back to 2014, and his unwillingness to negotiate.
Yuo can make up any comic book quality analysis you want.
I do not know who you call "we", I can be sure we are not part of it. We do not confirm anything in your cartoon quality posts.
The defeat oif Ukraine is not a defeat for the USA, it is a defeat for the deep state. Wow you really missed everything. Now go make up more stuff.
Goes back quite a bit further.
Like the end of WWII.
Lavrov: "The West is Agreement Incapable." But good luck, my friends.
Spot on, Lavrov is.
I don't know if hurling insults is the best way to start peace talks. But I'm not a political expert.
You were unable to cite a single insult.
Has it been 24 hours since that phone call?
You really think those 2 do not talk?
Who listens? Trump?
He can hear, but can he listen to what Putin says?
The author's article reveals nothing but secret diplomacy that needs no commentary. Down with secret diplomacy!
https://valdaiclub.com/a/highlights/diplomatic-secrecy-in-the-21st-century-why-is-it/
https://www.e-ir.info/2014/05/02/secret-diplomacy-and-the-dirty-hand-problem/
You want negotiations to be in public? That is not how negotiations are done. It's human nature, for good reasons.
You want Trump to be hampered by having all his communications released?
My hunch is they talked more than once. It is inadvisable to make public early stage negotiations.
Crook Biden caused the war and opposed negotiations. I got a real laugh when Ukraine held a peace conference and did not invite Russia, instead, Zelensky lobbied for more money, his favorite pitch.
Trump takes the lead in the west to end the war. No other leader except Orban showed that ability.
He said he could end the war in 24 hours. Not happening. Maybe his boss, AKA, Mush needs to get involved.
Oligarchs are really in charge here. The Deep State.
They want the U.S. to continue to be the hegemon, which means constant war drum beats against Russia, China, and now BRICS.
Russia knows what is behind everything. How can Russia not know when after sacrificing 20 million in defeating the Wehrmacht during WWII, the intentions of the U.S. since. No representative of the U.S. even showed up for Russia's celebration of the defeat of the NAZIs 70 years prior. None.
Russia knows.
The war started why President George W. Bush withdrew from the ABM treaty.
Clinton started off the rush to gather more nations into NATO.
How has Trump taken the lead to "end the war"? I don't hear him saying he will return to the INF or Open Skies treaties.
Nor do I hear him say he will lift sanctions.
Just a bunch of hot air.
If Russia makes any kind of deal which does not include an ironclad guarantee of Ukraine’s neutrality and disarmament, they’ve fought a bloody war for absolutely nothing. And even if Trump was willing to make such a deal, the deep state would be dead set against it. Assuming further that Trump somehow manages to overcome the deep state, the military-industrial complex, Congress, Russia-phobic European allies, Zelensky, and all other obstacles, it would still not be a guarantee of anything – the next president could rescind the deal (just like Trump did with JCPOA). Furthermore, a deal would not stop western intelligence services from playing games in Ukraine, mounting coups, supporting insurgencies and terrorism, covertly supplying weapons, and what not.
I just don’t see how this is ever gonna work for Russia.
"they've fought a bloody war for absolutely nothing"
Even if Russia will get nothing else outside of what already got in the constitution (which is very much unlikely), there are still four oblasts which are incorporated into Russian Federation after the escalation of February 2022 with several millions of Russian and pro-Russian people and natural resources worth of trillions $. And what is maybe even more important, Putin used those last 3 years for reformation of Russian state bureaucracy. Russia already became a much stronger state than it was 3 years ago. Besides, there are no reasons to think that Putin is going to change the goals of his special military operation.
First of all, Russia does not control those 4 regions in their entirety.
And second, while I’m sure that those 4 regions hold enormous emotional value to the Russian psyche, they are worth less than nothing, certainly not trillions. They were a rust belt even before the war, now they are a completely destroyed rust belt. Russia will be spending untold billions over the next 100 years reconstructing them.
As for natural resources, there are some, but Russia already has more than enough untapped natural resources. It totally wasn’t worth it to fight a war for those natural resources, nor was that ever the stated goal.
It pains me to say it, but Putin effed up. He completely underestimated Ukraine, maybe because the intelligence was catastrophically faulty. The plan, as far as I can tell, was to march into Kiev, effect a coup d’état, install a pro-Russian government, and end the war. Well, that failed miserably and now Russia has no way of keeping NATO out of Ukraine… unless it’s willing to conquer all of Ukraine (which would take another 300 years at the current rate of progress).
Russia is quite reluctantly involved in the Ukrainian Civil War.
Soon all oblasts will be given the freedom to democratically decide their future. The US destroys democracies wherever it can. Russia has become a beacon of freedom and democracy shining light into the darkness of western neoliberal totalitarianism,
Are you just not very good at conveying sarcasm, or do you actually believe that BS?
I listen to the speeches of Presidents from countries the US opposes. Antiwar.com is the second news I read after visiting https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html
I'm old now but have been antiwar since the US wanted me to go to Vietnam. I've listened to President Putin quite a bit and have found him to be very smart. Same goes for the presidents of Venezuela and Colombia. The most recent very good presidential speech I have listened to is Claudia Sheinbaum, president of Mexico.
Even though nobody is perfect, I have heard president Putin express the desire to live a real democracy able to focus human intelligence.
It was a long time ago when I was accused of being a communist for asking why about the war in Vietnam. At that time I had heard the word yet had no idea what a communist is. Then in my first presidential election Lyndon Johnson said American boys shouldn't have to go fight for the freedom of Asian boys, so I voted for him even though Goldwater seemed more personable to me.
I don't know Ron Paul any more than I know Vladimir Putin, they both make sense to me. I'm not being sarcastic. President Putin has made many good choices as the voice for BRICS+ this past year and has gained world-wide respect for his leadership.
"Russia has become a beacon of freedom and democracy" LOL and more LOL.
Russia is now the country inviting the world to come live there. I'm waiting for them to offer to buy the statue of liberty. That males me Laugh Out Loud.
Here is a trap. Western Ukrainian regions always voted for anti-Russian politicians. Obviously, in any referendum they would vote for independence from Russia. On the other hand, if allow them independence, they would give their land to American militarists. That's why on a certain stage Russia has to talk seriously about that with U.S. There is no other way to solve this problem. The goals of the special military operation were denazification and demilitarization of Ukraine. It is achievable. The problem is how to prevent the revanche.
“they’ve fought a bloody war for absolutely nothing”
Not absolutely nothing. They’ll probably manage to hold on to Luhansk, and secure and hold on to Donetsk.
On the other hand, they’ve established that they’re no longer a credible conventional military threat to Europe, at least so long as Monaco keeps La Force Publique fully staffed. That and the reduction in commercial ties leaves them without substantial sabers to rattle other than their nukes.
Russia is not a threat to Europe. Russia is a responsible nation that wishes to go to the moon with China.
President Putin said attempting to govern Europe is beyond Russia's capacity or desire. It would be like herding cats (my emphasis).
"Russia is not a threat to Europe" Tell that to the people in Ukraine. PS. Ukraine is on continent of Europe.
That doesn't make Russia a threat to all of Europe.
PS. Until Kruschev cut Ukraine lose from Russia, without the approval of the Duma, Russia shared a 400 year history with Ukraine.
I do know that Khrushchev gave Crimea to Ukraine, rumor has it after losing a game of poker. But I don't know that he "cut Ukraine lose from Russia." Would you explain that?
Russia has shared its space station with Americans.
We know a young man from Ukraine.
Eastern Ukraine.
He is Russian to the core. Depises the people in govenment in Kiev.
"On the other hand, they've established that they're no longer a credible conventional military threat to Europe"
That's crystal clear. But imperialist warmongers will continue to caterwaul how an enormous increase in military spending is urgently needed lest the Russians march all the way to Calais.
Well, yeah — they did that from 1945-1990, then had to settle for smaller Enemies of the Week for a couple of decades before going back to it. If Russia and China and Iran and North Korea disappeared tomorrow, we'd eventually be reduced to consuming propaganda about the Djiboutian Threat and the Nordic Peril.
MIC gotta have a boogeyman to get those Benjamins.
NATO has proven its incapacity in this conflict.
Putin does not care about how many Russians die. He just once to be on the world stage.
He just once to be on the world stage.
What does that mean?
No, Trump once to be at world stage…!
If Trump was anti deep state, a gunman wouldn’t have missed and DOGE would’ve headed first to the pentagon and shredded it to bits, instead of dismantling a consumer protection agency. He also wouldn’t be bowing to Israel.
He is a small part of the deep state. Not quite at oligarch level. He can be removed. Kennedy-like.
Interesting read about “maverick” Musk:
THE PENTAGON IS RECRUITING ELON MUSK TO HELP THEM WIN A NUCLEAR WAR
https://www.mintpressnews.com/pentagon-recruiting-elon-musk-nuclear-war/289055/
"Musk, however, has downplayed both the probability and the consequences of nuclear war. On The Lex Friedman Podcast, he described the likelihood of a terminal confrontation as “quite low.” And while speaking with Trump last year, he claimed that nuclear holocaust is “not as scary as people think,” noting that “Hiroshima and Nagasaki were bombed, but now they are full cities again.” President Trump agreed."
Both Musk and Trump are certifiable and in a well run country with a good mental health care system they would be. But in our wonderful "democracy" we let madmen control nuclear weapons.
Anyway, it's always gonna be easier and much cheaper to defeat an Iron Dome than to build one. The only reason the Israeli Iron Dome works is because Hamas and Hezbollah are technologically unsophisticated. Even Iranian missiles managed to penetrate it, never mind an Oreshnik.
Its mission isn’t to defend against incoming. It’s about the ability to launch.
I don't think it's quite that simple. I think he harbors some genuine animus towards the deep state after they fabricated all those Russian election meddling stories during his first term. But I don't think he wants to dismantle the deep state, and I most certainly don't think he wants to dismantle American imperialism. Quite to the contrary, he very much sees himself as an imperial president on the world stage.
Let’s put it this way, he wants revenge on those who ratfucked him. But overall he is not an outsider. He is with the empire program.
Absolutely! And the joke is on his supporters who think he will somehow shake the system in favor of ordinary Americans.
Trump says a lot of things from morning to night and changes it the next day to say more stuff. It is never ending. Chaos and constant turmoil is what he wants so people never know what is going to happen. That goes for both sides.
Still he is quite consistent in what does concern domestic politics.
You are right.
He is f*cking everything up, making a nice landing pad for the oligarchs, to the detriment of the rest of us.
“What can be said about this news: as the administration in Washington unfolds its work, many different communications arise,” Peskov said. “These communications are conducted through different channels. And of course, amid the multiplicity of these communications, I personally may not know something, be unaware of something. Therefore, in this case, I can neither confirm nor deny it.”
Wow. Now there is a mouthful of bullshit if I ever heard a mouthful of bullshit. So, yes.
No… He hasn't yet…!
No talks at presidential level has taken placed…!
Why would Putin trust Trump?
Trump:
1) withdrew from the INF treaty
2) withdrew from Open Skies agreement
3) sanctioned Russia
4) provided Kiev with weapons
So, is Trump's plan to (unverified?,falsely?) claim he "spoke"with Putin but Putin would not "negotiate"
so Trump's intended Orwellian "peace through strength" plan for a global arms race with no weapons treaties will "have to" continue ?