President Donald Trump and Russia’s President Vladimir Putin spoke on Thursday for more than two hours, the White House said, ahead of Trump’s in-person meeting on Friday with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
Trump called it a “productive” conversation and said he and Putin would eventually meet again — in Budapest, Hungary, at an unspecified time.
“At the conclusion of the call, we agreed that there will be a meeting of our High Level Advisors, next week,” Trump wrote on his social media platform Truth Social. “The United States’ initial meetings will be led by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, together with various other people, to be designated. A meeting location is to be determined. President Putin and I will then meet in an agreed upon location, Budapest, Hungary, to see if we can bring this ‘inglorious’ War, between Russia and Ukraine, to an end.”
Later on Thursday, Trump revealed he and Putin discussed Tomahawk missiles — U.S. long-range weapons that Ukraine has requested that would be able to strike deeper inside Russia.
Trump said he asked Putin if he would mind if the U.S. gave them to Ukraine.
“He didn’t like the idea,” Trump said.
The president again commented the difficulty in bringing the nearly four-year war to a close.
“We hope we’re going to get it stopped,” Trump said as he took reporter questions during an event in the Oval Office. “I thought this would be because of my relationship with President Putin, I thought this would be very quick. And it’s turned out to be — who would think I did Middle East before I did this?”
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, when asked if conditions have changed for Trump to believe a second meeting with Putin would be more successful than their Alaska summit, told reporters on Thursday, “The president is always willing to take a chance at diplomacy.”
ABC News Chief White House Correspondent Mary Bruce asked Leavitt if Trump still believed he could get Putin and Zelenskyy in a room together, after he couldn’t reach that step after hosting Putin for a summit in Alaska in August.
“I think he thinks it’s possible, and he would of course love to see that happen,” Leavitt said. “But right now, there were discussions and plans are now being made for the Russian side and our folks, led by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, to meet and then for President Putin and President Trump to perhaps meet again. But I don’t think the president has closed the door on that at all.”
Russia overnight fired more than 300 drones and about three dozen missiles at targets throughout Ukraine, including civilian energy infrastructure, Zelenskyy said on Thursday.
The strike also targeted the State Emergency Service department in the Kharkiv region, he said.
“There are wounded,” Zelenskyy said on social media. “Recovery efforts are underway everywhere. Emergency services are working.”
Zelenskyy, who is scheduled on Friday to meet Trump at the White House, said on Thursday that the ongoing strikes only showed that the West needed to continue applying “pressure” on Russian President Vladimir Putin.
That pressure included continuing to update sanctions, but, he said, it could also include longer-range capabilities for the Ukrainian military to strike targets farther into Russia.
“Strong decisions are possible, decisions that can help. And this depends on the United States, on Europe, on all partners whose strength directly determines whether the war will be ended,” Zelenskyy said.
Trump’s considered green light for Ukraine Tomahawks could ‘push Russia back,’ NATO minister says
He added, “Now there is an important momentum toward peace in the Middle East. In Europe, this is also possible. That is exactly what I will be discussing today and tomorrow in Washington.”
The Kremlin on Wednesday also addressed the potential for the West to supply weapons for or to greenlight longer-range Ukrainian strikes within Russia.
Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov was quoted in Tass, a Russian state-affiliated media outlet, saying that deliveries of U.S.-made Tomahawks would amount to a “dangerous escalation of tensions” between Russia and the United States.
The Russian strike on Ukraine overnight targeted several Ukrainian regions — with a focus on the Poltava and Kharkiv regions — with a total of about 320 drones, about 200 of which were Shahed attack drones, the Ukrainian air force said. About 37 missiles were also fired, the military said.
Most of those aerial attacks were thwarted by Ukraine or otherwise failed, the air force said. Thirty-seven drones and 14 missiles made it through Ukraine’s air defenses, the military said.
The Russian Ministry of Defense also reported downing at least 51 Ukrainian drones over Russian territory. Local authorities said the electricity supplies to several settlements in the Volgograd, Voronezh and Belgorod regions were disrupted by the Ukrainian attacks.
Trump on Wednesday said during an Oval Office press conference that he thought Russia and Ukraine were close to a ceasefire deal about two months ago, blaming the impasse on animosity between Zelenskyy and Putin.
“You know, it’s an obstacle. It’s an obstacle,” Trump said. “There’s no question about it.”
