Ukraine-Russia war live: Trump dials Putin to ‘immediately’ start peace talks as Hegseth rules out Kyiv’s Nato bid
Donald Trump has said he spoke with Vladimir Putin about starting negotiations immediately to end the war in Ukraine.
The US and Russian president discussed the matter on an hour-and-a-half phone call yesterday, in which Trump said the pair agreed to “work together, very closely”.
“We each talked about the strengths of our respective nations, and the great benefit that we will someday have in working together,” Trump said in a social media post. “But first, as we both agreed, we want to stop the millions of deaths taking place in the war with Russia/Ukraine.”
Later, Kyiv said the US president also spoke to Ukraine’s president Zelensky about his conversation with Putin.
Earlier on Wednesday, Trump’s defence secretary, Pete Hegseth, said a return to Ukraine’s pre-2014 borders was unrealistic and the US administration did not see Nato membership for Kyiv as part of a solution to the war.
It comes after Volodymyr Zelensky said earlier that Putin is not preparing for peace and continues to slaughter Ukrainians despite talk of a ceasefire.
