The Kremlin said Trump had raised “the issue of an immediate ceasefire” in the call, their sixth known call since he returned to the White House in January, but the Russian leader said he “will not back down.”
“Vladimir Putin stated that Russia continues to seek a political resolution to the conflict through negotiations,” Kremlin’s foreign policy aide Yuri Ushakov said in a briefing Thursday.
But the Kremlin has so far not offered concessions on its central demands that Ukraine should cede territory and give up on joining NATO.
While Kyiv or the White House did not say what the call between Trump and Zelenskyy would involve, the Ukrainian president is widely expected to renew his calls for more military aid and U.S. sanctions against Russia. Ukraine is still reeling from Trump’s decision this week to halt some U.S. military equipment deliveries, which include vital air defense systems.
“Without truly large-scale pressure, Russia will not change its dumb, destructive behavior,” Zelenskyy said, stressing that it “primarily” depends on the U.S. to “change the situation for the better.”
Earlier this week, the Pentagon halted weapons shipments to Ukraine amid concerns, which some officials have disputed, that it could undermine the U.S. stockpile. The weapons being held include thousands of high explosive munitions, precision guided missiles, grenade launchers and Patriot interceptors that Ukraine would use to defend against Russian missiles, according to four defense officials and congressional sources.
“We can’t give weapons to everybody all around the world,” chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell told reporters Wednesday. “We have to look out for America and defending our homeland and our troops around the world.”
Michael Bociurkiw, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council think tank, said Trump’s inaction and his outright blaming of Ukraine at times is likely seen by Putin as an invitation to press forward on the battlefield.
“Putin sees this as almost an invitation to bomb, bomb the heck out of Ukrainian cities and to grab more territory,” he said in a telephone interview from the southwestern Ukrainian city of Odesa.
Keir Giles, a senior fellow at Chatham House, a London-based think tank, said Trump’s call with Zelenskyy on Friday is unlikely to bring any substantial progress.
Past talks between the U.S. and Ukrainian presidents have proven to yield as little impact on the overall direction of U.S. policy as Trump’s “occasional outbursts” on social media that Putin is not “playing along” with what he wants, Giles said in an email.
