Putin and Trump speak by phone: LIVE UPDATES

President Trump has indicated that Ukraine will not be admitted to NATO as part of any ceasefire deal with Russia.

“I don’t think it’s practical to have it, personally. I know that our new Secretary of Defense, who’s excellent, made a statement today saying that he thinks it’s unlikely or impractical. I think, probably, that’s true,” Trump told reporters.

Trump acknowledged that Moscow has, for “many, many years,” insisted there was “no way they’d allow” Kiev to join the US-led military bloc.

“They’ve been saying that for a long time – that Ukraine cannot go into NATO. And I’m okay with that,” he said. “It certainly would seem that most people have said that that is something that’s not going to happen.”

President Trump has reiterated Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth’s assessment that attempting to return Ukraine to its 2014 borders is “unrealistic” and that Kiev will likely have to cede territory to Moscow to achieve peace.

“Well, I think Pete said today that that’s unlikely, right? It certainly would seem to be unlikely. They took a lot of land,” Trump said of Russia during a question-and-answer session with reporters after a swearing-in ceremony for Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard.

“I’m not making an opinion on it, but I’ve read a lot on it, and a lot of people think that that’s unlikely,” he added, noting that he believes only “some of it will come back.”

“I’m just here to try and get peace. I don’t care so much about anything other than I want to stop having millions of people killed!” Trump said.

President Trump has named Saudi Arabia as a potential host for his first meeting with President Putin during his second term. Moscow has not commented on the US president’s statement so far.

“The first time we’ll meet in Saudi Arabia, see if we get something done,” Trump told journalists in the Oval Office.

Trump indicated that several meetings with Putin could take place in the coming months, saying, “We expect that he’ll come here, and I’ll go there, and we’re going to meet also, probably in Saudi Arabia,” according to Matt Viser, the White House bureau chief for The Washington Post.

The phone conversation between Putin and Trump has become the “main event” of the year thus far, according to the Vice Speaker of the Russian parliament’s upper chamber, Konstantin Kosachev. The talks have laid the foundation for future contacts, any “breakthroughs are still far away,” he warned, while expressing cautious optimism about the looming negotiations. 

“The situation, as they say, is without the right to make a mistake for both sides. I am sure that this is how the two leaders will instruct their negotiating teams,” Kosachev wrote on his Telegram channel. “The mistakes will remain on the conscience of the Ukrainian and European politicians who provoked the current conflict. They will be held accountable by their voters.”

Europeans and Kiev must have a say in resolving the Ukraine conflict, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock has said, in the aftermath of the Trump-Putin phone talks.

“Peace can only be achieved together. And that means: with Ukraine and with the Europeans,” she told Politico. “We must take this path together so that peace returns to Europe.”

The US views President Vladimir Putin and Russia as a “great competitor” and “at times an adversary,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said following the phone call between the two leaders.

“As the president has said as well, he enjoys having good diplomatic relationships with leaders around the world, finding that common ground, calling them out when they are wrong and leading from a position of peace through strength,” Leavitt told journalists.