Russian President Vladimir Putin told US President Donald Trump on Friday that Ukrainian drone attacks on Moscow during last month’s Russian elections had undermined the chances of quickly resuming trilateral peace talks, according to the Kremlin’s account of their phone call. The remarks cooled expectations of an imminent return to negotiations.
Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov said Moscow had been ready to resume talks after the parliamentary elections, but that strikes on the capital, other cities and polling stations on the main voting day had, in Moscow’s telling, disrupted that possibility. When talks might now restart would be considered in due course, he added.
The call came as Washington described the war as sitting at a dangerous stalemate. The US Secretary of State said on Thursday that the United States would keep working towards a settlement to end the conflict, which began with Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022.
For business leaders watching the conflict, the read-out offered little sign of the de-escalation that energy and shipping markets have been pricing in fits and starts. Each delay in a credible negotiating track extends the sanctions, insurance and supply-chain calculations that companies trading across Europe and Asia must carry.
Ushakov said the two leaders also discussed major economic initiatives, including potential supplies of Russian fuel — a topic the US president addressed publicly the same day. That economic thread, running alongside the stalled diplomacy, is likely to dominate the next phase of contacts between the two capitals.
Ukrainian officials have disputed Moscow’s characterisation of events around the election. With both sides publicly committed to talks in principle and blaming the other in practice, diplomats face the familiar problem of sequencing: who moves first, and what a first step would even look like.
