American President Donald Trump suggested Budapest as the place for a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin during a phone call on Thursday and the Kremlin chief agreed to it, he told reporters Thursday night Putin’s adviser Yury Ushakov. TASR informs about it based on the reports of the TASS agency.
According to Ushakov, Putin’s phone call with Trump lasted two and a half hours. “By the way, this was their eighth phone call,” Ušakov noted that the initiative for this interview came from the Kremlin. “During this conversation, they exchanged a lot of information and it was very open and confidential at the same time,” the adviser to the Russian president emphasized.
As he continued, Putin briefed Trump in detail on his assessment of the development of the “special military operation” in Ukraine, where, according to him, Russian troops have a strategic initiative on the entire front line. “(Putin) at the same time emphasized Russia’s interest in reaching a peaceful, political and diplomatic solution,” informed Ušakov.
According to him, the presidents of Russia and the USA also talked about the possible supply of powerful American missiles with a flat flight path of the Tomahawk type to Ukraine. It is expected that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyj will ask for precisely these long-range attack missiles at the meeting with Trump in the White House on Friday.
“Putin repeated his position that Tomahawk missiles will not change the situation on the battlefield, but will significantly damage the relations between our countries, not to mention the prospects for a peaceful settlement (of the conflict in Ukraine).” warned Ušakov.
“Trump said that he will meet with Zelensky tomorrow and, when negotiating with him, he will take into account the positions of the Russian president, which he expressed in today’s phone call,” answered Ušakov to a journalist’s question whether Trump will decide on the supply of tomahawks to Ukraine before the meeting in Budapest. It does not yet have a set date, but preparations for it will begin in the next few days, according to Ušakov.
In this context, a phone call between the Ministers of Foreign Affairs, Sergey Lavrov, and Marco Rubio will take place soon. According to Ushakov, during the phone call, Trump repeatedly emphasized the importance of achieving peace in Ukraine as soon as possible. At the same time, he is said to have admitted that this armed conflict is the most difficult of all that he has dealt with as US president.
