President-elect Donald Trump spoke with Russian President Vladimir Putin and advised him not to escalate the Ukraine war, a source familiar with the conversation told Reuters on Sunday, as President Joe Biden plans to urge Trump not to abandon Kyiv.
Trump and Putin spoke in recent days, said the source. Trump spoke with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Wednesday. Trump has criticized the scale of U.S. military and financial support for Kyiv, vowing to end the war quickly, without saying how.
The Washington Post first reported the call had taken place, citing unidentified sources, and said Trump had told Putin that he should not escalate the Ukraine war.
But Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Monday no such call had taken place.
“This is completely untrue. This is pure fiction, it’s just false information,” he told reporters. “There was no conversation.”
“This is the most obvious example of the quality of the information that is being published now, sometimes even in fairly reputable publications,” he said.
Asked whether Putin had plans for any contacts with Trump, Peskov said: “There are no concrete plans yet.”
Ukraine’s foreign ministry said it was not informed in advance of the call between Trump and Putin and subsequently could neither endorse nor object to it.
