Trump said he will follow up his call with the Russian leader by reaching out to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
President Donald Trump said he spoke to Russian President Vladimir Putin on Feb. 12 and the two agreed to “start negotiations immediately” to end the war in Ukraine.
“I just had a lengthy and highly productive phone call with President Vladimir Putin of Russia,” Trump announced in a Feb. 12 post on his Truth Social media account. The call marks Trump’s first known conversation with Putin since taking office.
Trump said he and Putin discussed ways to end the war in Ukraine and improve relations between Russia and the United States.
“First, as we both agreed, we want to stop the millions of deaths taking place in the War with Russia/Ukraine,” Trump wrote.
Trump said he and Putin both agreed that efforts to start peace negotiations should begin right away.
On the 2024 campaign trail, Trump repeatedly called for talks to end the fighting between Russia and Ukraine.
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Following his conversation with Putin, Trump said he would immediately reach out to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to inform him of the progress of discussions.
“I have asked Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Director of the CIA John Ratcliffe, National Security Advisor Michael Waltz, and Ambassador and Special Envoy Steve Witkoff, to lead the negotiations which, I feel strongly, will be successful,” Trump wrote.
So far, the Russian side has provided few additional details about the call between Trump and Putin.
In remarks carried by Russia’s state-sponsored Tass news agency, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the two leaders spoke for about an hour and a half.
Putin and Trump’s phone conversation comes a day after the Trump administration secured the release of Marc Fogel, who had been held in Russia since 2021 over a marijuana possession charge.
Trump thanked his Russian counterpart for agreeing to Fogel’s release.
Announcing Fogel’s release on Tuesday, Waltz said the prisoner exchange “serves as a show of good faith from the Russians and a sign we are moving in the right direction to end the brutal and terrible war in Ukraine.”
The call between Trump and Putin also came on the same day Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth met with Ukraine’s network of international backers in Belgium. At the meeting, Hegseth reiterated the Trump administration’s calls to negotiate an end to the war.
Hegseth also pushed back on Ukraine’s ambitions to retake all of the territory it has lost to Russia throughout the war, and its wish to join NATO.
While Trump has called for negotiations to end the war, he has left open the possibility of continuing U.S. support for Ukraine. This week Trump announced he had taken steps on an agreement in which Ukraine would trade access to its rare earth minerals in exchange for U.S. aid.
This is a developing story. Additional details will follow.
