(Moscow) Russia “will not give up its objectives” in Ukraine, Russian president Vladimir Putin said on Thursday in a telephone conversation with his American counterpart, Donald Trump, while saying that he is open to pursuing negotiations with Kyiv.
This discussion between the two men, the sixth since the return of the republican billionaire to the White House, intervened the day after Washington’s announcement of the judgment of the delivery of certain weapons to Ukraine, more than three and a half years after the start of the Russian offensive.
This decision of its main supplier in military equipment risks putting Kyiv in a difficult position at a time when Russian troops continue to move on the front. On the road to Denmark Thursday, the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky, called on Europeans to increase their support in the face of what is akin to an American disengagement.
The exchange between Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump on Thursday, which lasted about an hour, was qualified before journalists as “franc” by the diplomatic advisor to the Kremlin, Iouri Ouchakov.
They mentioned the conflict in Ukraine and the situation in the Middle East, as well as the relations between their two countries.
Russia “continues to seek a political and negotiated conflict solution” with Ukraine, the Russian president told his counterpart, according to Ouchakov.
Vladimir Putin “underlined the will of the Russian party to continue the negotiation process” started in Istanbul, where two sessions of Russo-Ukrainian direct talks have recently taken place with meager results.
“Our president also said that Russia would pursue its objectives, namely the elimination of well -known deep causes that led to the current situation,” insisted Mr. Ouchakov.
“And Russia will not give up these objectives,” he added.
Ukraine, Iran, Syria, etc.
Moscow claims in particular from Ukraine that it gives up to him four partially occupied regions, in addition to the Crimea annexed in 2014, and that it renounces to enter NATO. Unacceptable conditions for Kyiv.
MM. Putin and Trump also mentioned conflicts in the Middle East, whose recent war between Iran and Israel and Syria, the Russian Head of State having argued for a regulation “exclusively by political and diplomatic means”, according to Mr. Ouchakov.
The two presidents “confirmed their mutual interest in the implementation of a series of promising economic projects, especially in the fields of energy and space research,” he noted.
Donald Trump has since returned to power an unexpected rapprochement with Moscow, taking over contact with Mr. Putin and sometimes going so far as to bring responsibility for the current situation to Ukraine.
Trump had recently said he was frustrated by the lack of progress to find a way out of this conflict which he had promised to settle quickly.
Tuesday, it was the French president, Emmanuel Macron, who had spoken on the phone with Vladimir Putin, for the first time since 2022.
Kyiv and his Western allies have been asking for a ceasefire in Ukraine for months, which Moscow refuses which estimates that a break in the fighting would give Ukrainians the opportunity to rearm thanks to Western deliveries.
Strikes in Ukraine and Russia
Mr. Zelensky, who had previously called Donald Trump to “change his tone” with Russia and impose new sanctions to him, said on Thursday that “doubts” hovered “on the continuation of American support for Europe”.
He thus urged to “strengthen our cooperation and coordination within the EU and NATO”, two organizations that Ukraine aims to join.
In this context, the Ukrainian head of state said he hoped to speak with Mr. Trump “tomorrow or in the coming days”.
A telephone conversation “is being prepared, we hope it will take place on Friday, but it all depends on the agenda of the two presidents,” said AFP a senior Ukrainian official who requested anonymity.
On the ground, bombing and fighting continued on Thursday.
Eight people were killed and a dozen other injured in several Russian strikes, notably in the city of Poltava, where an army recruitment center was affected, and in Odessa, a large port on the Black Sea, Ukrainian officials announced.
On the Russian side, on the night of Wednesday to Thursday, strikes of Ukrainian drones killed one and two injured in the Russian region of Lipetsk, about 400 kilometers southeast of Moscow, according to local authorities.
Drones have also caused a fire on the site of a company in the city of Ielets – in the same region where several industrial complexes are located – without making victims.
The Russian army, which occupies about 20 % of the Ukrainian territory, claimed Thursday the capture of Milové, a border locality in the Ukrainian region of Kharkiv (northeast). This advance opens up a new angle of attack in this area which has not experienced movements for many months.
