US President Donald Trump and Russia’s Vladimir Putin held an hour-long telephone conversation on Monday, Russian presidential aide Yury Ushakov told reporters on Monday evening.
Ushakov said that the focus of the leaders’ “frank and constructive” conversation was on the situation in Iran and “trilateral negotiations on the Ukrainian settlement”, adding that the White House had requested the call.
In his conversation with Trump, Putin reportedly expressed his support for a swift “political and diplomatic settlement” of the war in Iran, Russia’s long-term strategic partner. In turn, Trump gave his assessment of US-Israeli operations in the Middle East, which Ushakov called a “substantive and useful exchange of views”.
Putin also told Trump that Russian troops were “advancing very successfully in Ukraine”, and noted that Kyiv should feel under pressure to make further concessions in peace negotiations as a result, Ushakov said. The issue of the US intervention in Venezuela was also raised in relation to the current instability in global oil markets, he added.
The phone call was the first held between the two leaders since December, and both Trump and Putin reportedly reaffirmed their earlier commitment to stay in contact on a regular basis.
Speaking to reporters in Miami after the call on Monday, Trump called the conversation “positive” and indicated he would be lifting sanctions on “some countries” to relieve a global oil shortage triggered by the war in the Middle East, which has sent crude oil prices rocketing past $100 per barrel.
The US has already issued a dispensation allowing Indian refiners to purchase Russian oil without facing sanctions. Further sanctions relief from the US would provide a much-needed injection of export revenue to Russia’s economy as oil prices continue to rise.
The amicable phone call comes less than two weeks after Putin denounced the US assassination of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei as a “cynical murder”, since when Russia has consistently voiced its support for Tehran in its war against the US.
On Monday, Putin congratulated Mojtaba Khamenei, son of the assassinated ayatollah, on his appointment as Iran’s new supreme leader, expressing Russia’s “unwavering support for Tehran” and its solidarity with Iran during its efforts to “resist armed aggression”.
