Trump Says He Has Spoken Directly to Putin About Ending War in Ukraine

Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President Donald Trump attend a meeting on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Osaka, Japan, on June 28, 2019. Mikhail Klimentyev/Sputnik via Reuters

President Donald Trump said on Feb. 7 that he has spoken to Russian President Vladimir Putin about ending the Russia–Ukraine war, drawing a response from the Kremlin.

Speaking to the New York Post in an exclusive interview on Air Force One, Trump said that he did speak with the Russian leader about the war, which started in 2022. Asked about how many times he has spoken to Putin in recent days, Trump said, “I'd rather not say.”

However, Trump said he believes that Putin “does care” about the carnage on the battlefield and “wants to see people stop dying.”

“All those dead people. Young, young, beautiful people. They’re like your kids, 2 million of them—and for no reason,“ Trump said, referring to soldiers dying in the war, adding that the conflict ”never would have happened” if he was president in 2022.

Elaborating, but without providing many details, Trump said that he has a plan to end the war, adding that he has a good relationship with Putin.

“I hope it’s fast,“ he said. ”Every day people are dying. This war is so bad in Ukraine. I want to end this damn thing.”

Longtime Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told the TASS state news agency that “many different communications are emerging” between Moscow and Washington, according to a Russian-to-English translation.

“These communications are conducted through different channels,” Peskov replied when asked by TASS to comment directly on Trump’s interview with the Post. “I personally may not know something, be unaware of something. Therefore, in this case, I can neither confirm nor deny it.”

In February 2022, Putin sent thousands of troops, tanks, and other military hardware to Ukraine as part of a “special military operation” for what he said was an attempt to end a possible threat to Russian sovereignty by Ukrainian forces backed by NATO. He also has said that Russia wants to protect Russian speakers living in Ukraine.

However, Ukraine and its Western backers, led by the Biden administration, have said the invasion was an imperial-style land grab and vowed to defeat Russian forces. Moscow controls a chunk of Ukraine about the size of the U.S. state of Virginia and is advancing at the fastest pace since the early days of the 2022 invasion.

Before taking office in January, Trump had said that he wants to quickly end the war, at several points saying he would end it within 24 hours of taking office.

On Feb. 7, Trump said he would probably meet Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy the following week to discuss ending the war. Zelenskyy told Reuters on the same day that he wanted Ukraine to supply the United States with rare earths and other minerals in return for continued financial support in its war effort.

“If we are talking about a deal, then let’s do a deal; we are only for it,” Zelenskyy said. “Let’s develop this together, make money, and most importantly, it’s about the security of the Western world.”

But Zelenskyy cautioned that Trump must meet with him before he meets with Putin on ending the war. The reason, he said, is because meeting with Putin first would “look like a dialogue about Ukraine without Ukraine.”

Reuters contributed to this report.