The US president says Putin also suggested he would participate in talks aimed at reaching a new nuclear deal with Tehran.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has told Donald Trump in a telephone conversation that Moscow would have to respond to the recent Ukrainian drone attacks, the US president said, as diplomatic overtures and momentum to reach a ceasefire have been overtaken by heavy aerial exchanges in the more than three-year war.
Trump said on Wednesday that the two men “discussed the attack on Russia’s docked airplanes, by Ukraine, and also various other attacks that have been taking place by both sides.”
Putin “did say, and very strongly, that he will have to respond to the recent attack on the airfields”, Trump said in a social media post.
Al Jazeera’s Kimberly Halkett said that Trump described his 85-minute phone call with Putin as “a good conversation but not one that would lead to immediate peace”.
“You have to remember that Donald Trump, when he came into office, was very confident that he could end this war on day one, but here we are now in June and the fact is … this is far from resolved,” she said from the White House.
Earlier Wednesday. Putin showed a flash of anger, referring to the suggestion of direct talks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and to Ukraine’s recent “terrorist acts” on Russian rail lines in the Kursk and Bryansk regions on the countries’ border.
“How can any such [summit] meetings be conducted in such circumstances? What shall we talk about?” Putin demanded in a video call with top Russian officials.
Putin’s refusal to meet Zelenskyy, who while dismissing Russia’s ceasefire proposal as “an ultimatum”, for his part renewed a call for direct talks with his Russian counterpart.
Zelenskyy on Wednesday also seemed to taunt Moscow by saying if it had accepted Kyiv’s offer of a ceasefire, there would have been no launching of the massive drone strike on Russian strategic bombers.
The Kremlin insisted on Wednesday that military options were “on the table” for its response to the unprecedented Ukrainian attacks deep inside Russia and accused the West of being involved in them.
Russia also urged the United States and United Kingdom to restrain Kyiv after the attacks, which Ukrainian officials have lauded as showing Kyiv can still fight back after more than three years of war.
British and US officials have said they had no prior knowledge of the weekend attacks on Russian nuclear-capable long-range bombers.
In his social media post, Trump said he and Putin also discussed Iran. Putin suggested he would participate in talks aimed at reaching a new nuclear deal with Tehran, Trump said.
“I stated to President Putin that Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon and, on this, I believe that we were in agreement,” Trump said. He accused Iran of “slow-walking” decisions regarding the talks.
Putin told Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian that Moscow was ready to help advance talks on a nuclear deal, the Kremlin said on Tuesday.
But Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said earlier on Wednesday that Washington’s proposal was against Tehran’s national interests, amid sharp differences over whether Tehran can continue to enrich uranium.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/6/4/trump-putin-says-russia-will-have-to-respond-to-ukraine-attacks?traffic_source=rss
