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05-07-2025
WASHHINGTON/ MOSCOW: President Donald Trump said he “didn’t make any progress” toward a potential ceasefire in the Russia-Ukraine war when he spoke by phone Thursday with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“No, I didn’t make any progress with him today at all,” Trump told reporters when asked about his call with Putin earlier in the day.
“We had a call. It was a pretty long call. We talked about a lot of things, including Iran, and we also talked about, as you know, the war with Ukraine. And I’m not happy about that, I’m not happy,” Trump said.
Putin aide Yury Ushakov said in a readout of the call that the two leaders held a “frank and substantive” conversation and that Trump raised the possibility of an immediate ceasefire in Russia’s war with Ukraine but that Putin did not agree. Putin said Russia “will pursue its stated objectives” in the conflict, and continues to look for a political resolution to the conflict through negotiations, Ushakov added.
The last publicly known call between Putin and Trump took place last month in a discussion that involved the Israel-Iran conflict, according to a Truth Social post by Trump. They also spoke in May about the Ukraine-Russia war.
Representatives from Russia and Ukraine held direct talks in Istanbul in May but there weren’t any breakthroughs.
Trump and some of his allies on Capitol Hill are seeking to secure a permanent ceasefire.
Trump repeatedly said on the campaign trail that he would bring an end to the conflict within the first 24 hours of his second term. During a presidential debate in September, he said he could resolve the conflict “before I even become president.”
Speaking to reporters Thursday, Trump was also asked about a US pause in shipping missiles and ammunition to Ukraine. Trump denied there was a pause.
“We haven’t, we’re giving weapons because we’ve given so many weapons, but we are giving weapons, and we’re working with them and trying to help them,” Trump said. “But we haven’t, you know, Biden emptied our whole country giving ‘em weapons, and we have to make sure that we have enough for ourselves.”
NBC News reported this week that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had ordered a shipment pause over concerns about the US military’s stockpiles, according to two congressional officials and two sources with knowledge of the decision.
A pall of acrid smoke hung over Kyiv on Friday morning following a night of intensive Russian strikes that hit almost every district of the capital, according to Ukrainian authorities.
Earlier, the hours of darkness were once again punctuated by the staccato of air defence guns, buzz of drones and large explosions. Ukraine said Russia fired a record 550 drones and 11 missiles during a long night of bombardment.
The strikes came hours after a phone call between US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin, after which Trump said he was “disappointed” that Putin was not ready to end the war against Ukraine.
A woman was killed in Russia following Ukrainian drone attacks, officials said.
The acting governor of Russia’s southern Rostov region said she was killed in a strike on a village not far from the Ukrainian border.
Russia’s overnight air strikes broke another record, Ukraine’s air force said, with 72 of the 550 drones penetrating air defences, up from a previous record of 537 launched last Saturday night.
Air raid alerts sounded for more than eight hours as several waves of attacks struck Kyiv, the “main target of the strikes”, the air force said on the messaging app Telegram. (Int’l News Desk)
