Trump Speaks with Putin: “Negotiations Are Starting Immediately, the War in Ukraine Must End”
For the first time since his return to the White House, the US president announced that he had spoken by phone with the Russian president, and announced that the two had agreed to visit each other’s country – “We talked about the great history of our countries, about the fact that we fought together in the world war and the great benefit that will one day accrue to us from cooperating.”
Trump Confirms First Direct Phone Call with Putin After Re-election
The conversation between Trump and Putin comes after years in which Western leaders, including Trump’s predecessor Joe Biden, boycotted the Russian president and avoided direct talks with him following the invasion of Ukraine.
Trump wrote that he and Putin agreed to work together, in close cooperation, and among other things, to visit each other’s countries: “We also agreed to make sure that our teams immediately start negotiations, and we will start by calling Ukrainian President Zelensky to update him on our conversation, which I will do right now. I asked Secretary of State Marco Rubio, CIA Director John Ratcliffe, National Security Advisor Mike Waltz and Special Envoy Steve Whitkoff to lead the negotiations, which I strongly believe will succeed.”
Trump and Putin Discuss Peace Talks and Ukraine Conflict
Trump announced on his social network that they discussed Ukraine, the Middle East, energy and artificial intelligence, as well as the strength of the dollar and other matters. “We both reflected on the great history of our countries and the fact that we fought so successfully together in World War II, and we remembered that Russia lost tens of millions of people, and so many of us!”
Trump also wrote: “We both talked about the strengths of our countries and the great benefit we would one day have from working together. But first of all, we both agreed that we wanted to stop the millions of deaths recorded in the war between Russia and Ukraine.
Trump and Zelensky Talk Peace
Later in the evening, Trump reported that he had indeed spoken with Zelensky, writing: “The conversation went very well. He, like President Putin, wants to make peace.” Trump noted that the two also discussed Zelensky’s meeting in Munich on Friday with U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and that he hoped the outcome of the meeting would be positive: “The time has come to stop this ridiculous war, in which there has been enormous and completely unnecessary killing and destruction. May God bless the Russians and the Ukrainians!”
Zelenskyy, for his part, said that the conversation with Trump was “very meaningful” and that the US president had updated him on the details of the conversation with Putin: “We discussed opportunities to achieve peace, and we agreed to keep in touch and set up meetings.
Fogel Released from Russian Prison in Exchange for Cybercriminal Vinnik
The conversation between Trump and Putin came almost a day after Moscow unexpectedly released American prisoner Mark Fogel from a Russian prison, allowing him to fly back to the United States with Trump’s envoy to the Middle East, Steve Wyktoff. In exchange for the release of American Mark Fogel from prison in Russia, Trump releases Russian crypto criminal Alexander Vinnick from prison.
The surprising deal was reached after secret negotiations conducted by Whitkoff on Trump’s behalf, and it was seen as a signal by Putin of his desire to rebuild trust with the United States and reach agreements. US National Security Adviser Mike Waltz himself said last night that the swap deal serves as “a demonstration of goodwill on the part of the Russians and a sign that we are moving in the right direction to end the cruel and terrible war in Ukraine.”
Fogel, 63, is a history teacher who was arrested in Russia in 2021 for drug offenses, after Russian authorities say he entered the country with medical marijuana. In 2023, he was sentenced to 14 years in prison. Initially, the Biden administration refrained from defining Fogel as someone who was arrested in Russia for no fault of his own, and thus marking him as a target for return in a prisoner exchange like other American prisoners, but later it accepted this definition, and it was the Trump administration that succeeded in completing the deal.
Tonight it was revealed that in exchange for Fogel, the United States will release from American prison a Russian citizen named Alexander Vinnik, the head of a network of cybercriminals, who was arrested in Greece in 2017 and later handed over to American law enforcement. In May of last year, he pleaded guilty and was convicted of conspiracy to commit money laundering.
According to U.S. authorities, Vinnick operated cryptocurrency exchange services and allegedly raised $4 billion in ransomware attacks, identity theft, drug deals, and other criminal acts.
Prisoner Swap and the Role of Saudi Arabia
Tonight, the Reuters news agency reported that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia, was also involved in talks for Fogel’s release. This information raises the question of whether this is a round-robin deal that includes additional developments that will be revealed later.
Trump’s Position on Ukraine’s NATO Membership and Territorial Integrity
Trump’s defense minister: Kyiv will not join NATO and will not return to its territory
President Trump, it has been recalled,, promised during his election campaign that if he becomes president, he will end the war between Russia and Ukraine “within 24 hours.” He and many others in the Republican Party have spoken of Washington’s enormous amounts of money in military aid to Kyiv as a waste of money, and Trump’s remarks implied that he would also force Ukraine to make painful compromises, including giving up huge swaths of territory occupied by Putin’s military over the past 11 years.
During a meeting with NATO officials in Brussels this evening, Trump’s Defense Secretary Pete Hasseth said the United States wants Ukraine to continue to exist as an independent country, but said its inclusion in NATO — an idea that was one of Putin’s pretexts for invading Ukraine in February 2022 — is an “unrealistic” aspiration.
Hagseth also said that the goal of Ukraine’s supporters to regain control of all the territories it has lost to Russia since the conflict between them erupted in 2014 is “delusional.”
His comments are a clear signal to Kyiv that the Trump administration will not agree to Zelensky’s demand that Moscow return to Ukraine all the territories it has occupied from it, which amounts to one-fifth of the country’s territory.
