The Kremlin today denied that Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke by phone with US President-elect Donald Trump in recent days and said that Putin currently has no specific plans for talks with Trump, Reuters reported, BTA reported.
Newspaper “Washington Post“ first announced that such a conversation had taken place, citing unnamed sources, and said Trump had told Putin he would not escalate the war in Ukraine. Reuters also reported the conversation, citing an unnamed source. “This is completely false. This is pure fiction, just false information,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters. “There was no conversation”, he added.
„This is the clearest example of the quality of information that is published nowadays, sometimes even by quite authoritative publications,” Peskov added. Asked if Putin had plans to make any contacts with Trump, the Kremlin spokesman said: “There are no concrete plans yet.“
The war in Ukraine, which has been going on for two and a half years, is entering, according to some experts, its final stage – most dangerous – stage as Moscow continues to advance at its fastest pace since the first weeks of the conflict and the West ponders how the war will end. During his campaign, Trump said he could bring peace to Ukraine in 24 hours if elected, but gave few details on how he would seek an end to Europe's biggest military conflict since World War II.
Putin congratulated Trump on Thursday, praising him for showing courage when a gunman tried to kill him and saying Moscow was open to dialogue with the Republican president-elect. Russia has been signaling to the US and its allies for weeks that Moscow would consider it a significant escalation if they allowed Ukraine to strike deep into Russian territory with Western-supplied long-range weapons.
On September 12, Putin said that Western approval of such a step would mean “direct intervention of NATO countries, the United States and European countries in the war in Ukraine”, as targeting and launching of the missiles would be used NATO personnel and infrastructure. The Kremlin has indicated that it senses that European powers are alarmed by Trump's election, but are still “pouring weapons into Ukraine to continue this war to the end”.
Peskov was also asked about the information that British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron want to persuade US President Joe Biden to allow Ukraine to strike with missiles “Storm Shadow“ targets, deep in Russian territory.
„Nothing can be ruled out,” Peskov replied, adding that European leaders still want a strategic defeat for Russia. “We, in response, will continue the SVO (special military operation) until we achieve our goals,” said the Kremlin spokesman. “The dynamics of the SVO is understood by the military. They understand well what is going on. And it's probably important to note that no single type of weapon is already capable of changing this dynamic,” he added.
Putin, who ordered thousands of troops to invade Ukraine in 2022, eight years after fighting in eastern Ukraine, sees the war as a struggle between Russia and a declining West, which he says has neglected Moscow's interests since the collapse of the Soviet union in 1991. Ukraine and its Western allies say Putin has fueled an imperialist war against its smaller neighbor, and they keep warning that if Russia wins the war, it will embolden authoritarian states around the world, Reuters notes.