The Kremlin on Monday denied that President-lect Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin held a phone call following the U.S. presidential election last week.
The denial came after reporting from The Washington Post and Reuters that Trump and Putin held a phone call on Thursday, where the incoming commander-in-chief reportedly advised Putin not to escalate in Ukraine and reminded the Russian leader of the sizable US military presence in Europe.
“There was no conversation. This is completely untrue, it is pure fiction,” said Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin spokesman, according to TASS, a Russian state-owned media outlet.
The Hill reached out to Trump’s team for comment.
Putin issued a public congratulations to Trump on Thursday while speaking at a security conference in Russia, the same day the Post and Reuters reported that the call took place.
Putin, in his remarks, said he was ready to hold discussions with the president-elect. Trump has said he wants to end the war between Russia and Ukraine before inauguration day, saying he would leverage his relationships with Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to broker a settlement.
Trump and Zelensky did speak soon after Trump’s victory last week over Vice President Harris. Zelensky said it was a “good” and “productive” conversation. “Of course, we cannot yet know what his actions will be. But we do hope that America will become stronger,” he said.
Putin ordered Russian forces to launch a full-scale invasion against Ukraine in February 2022, part of a wider war against the country since Russian forces invaded the eastern Ukrainian territory of the Donbas in 2014, as well as annexing the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea.
The Biden administration and European and Asian allies have framed Russia’s war against Ukraine as an existential battle for the future of the liberal world order, saying Russia cannot be rewarded for seeking to take a neighboring country by force.
However, Ukraine and some of its backers in the U.S. have criticized the Biden administration for not holding back critical military assistance and restricting the use of American weapons in attacks into Russia. They are now appealing to Trump to scale up military assistance for Kyiv in a rebuke to policies from the Democrat-led administration.
Still, Trump has shown little interest in increasing aid to Ukraine and during his debate against Vice President Harris in September could not even say that he backed a Ukrainian victory in the war.
Many of Trump’s closest advisors and congressional allies argue the U.S. should scale back or even cut off military and financial support for Kyiv, focusing resources instead on securing the southern border and other domestic challenges.
