President Donald Trump described his nearly two-hour phone conversation with Russian President Vladimir Putin Tuesday at the White House as “great” during an exclusive interview with “The Ingraham Angle.”
“[We] talked about a lot of things — toward getting it to peace, and we talked about other things also,” Trump said, referring to Russia’s three-year war against Ukraine.
Ukrainian officials agreed to an unconditional 30-day ceasefire earlier in March after a meeting with U.S. officials in Saudi Arabia.
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Putin did not immediately agree to an unconditional ceasefire, instead announcing Tuesday after his phone call with Trump that Moscow would halt strikes only against Ukraine’s energy infrastructure for 30 days.
Wall Street Journal chief foreign affairs correspondent Yaroslav Trofimov reported not even an hour after the Kremlin made the announcement that a Russia-guided bomb took out the power in the Ukrainian city of Slovyansk.
Air raid sirens were also heard throughout the country as drones flew in the skies over a handful of cities, including Kyiv, Sumy and Kharkiv.
Trump doubled down on his claims that the war would never have started had he been president, telling Fox News host Laura Ingraham it was “not a war that was supposed to happen.”
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“And right now, you have a lot of guns pointing at each other, and a ceasefire without going a little bit further would have been tough. Russia has the advantage,” he said.
“As you know, they have encircled about 2,500 soldiers. They are nicely encircled and that’s not good, and we want to get it over with. Look, we’re doing this. There are no Americans involved. There could be if we end up in World War III over this, which is so ridiculous — but, you know, strange things happen.”
The commander-in-chief appeared to be referring to a post he made on his Truth Social account March 14 about Russian forces reportedly surrounding Ukrainian soldiers in the Kursk region.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy denied Trump’s claims, writing on X, formerly Twitter: “There is no encirclement of our troops.”
The General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, the main body responsible for planning the country’s defense, wrote on its Facebook page that the alleged “encirclement” is “false” and “fabricated by the Russians for political manipulation and to exert pressure on Ukraine and its partners.”
According to a readout from the Kremlin after Putin’s call with Trump, Russia and Ukraine will conduct a prisoner exchange on Wednesday, trading 175 people from each side, as discussions to end the war continue.
The readout also noted that for a potential ceasefire across the entire frontline, mobilization and the rearmament of Ukraine “need to stop,” as well as a “complete cessation” of foreign military aid and intelligence to Kyiv.
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