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President Trump said on Wednesday that he had a \u201clengthy and highly productive phone call\u201d with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, characterizing it as the beginning of a negotiation to end the war in Ukraine.<\/p>\n
It was the first confirmed conversation between the two men during Mr. Trump\u2019s second term, coming as Mr. Trump has made clear to advisers that finding a U.S.-backed end to the war that Russia began is a priority for his administration.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe discussed Ukraine, the Middle East, Energy, Artificial Intelligence, the power of the Dollar, and various other subjects,\u201d Mr. Trump wrote<\/a> in a social media post.<\/p>\n \u201cWe each talked about the strengths of our respective Nations, and the great benefit that we will someday have in working together,\u201d Mr. Trump added. \u201cBut first, as we both agreed, we want to stop the millions of deaths taking place in the War with Russia\/Ukraine.\u201d (An estimated several hundred thousand deaths have occurred in the conflict, not millions.)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n The U.S. president said he planned to inform President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine that both countries planned to \u201chave our respective teams start negotiations immediately.\u201d Mr. Zelensky\u2019s office later said that the Ukrainian president spoke with Mr. Trump for an hour.<\/p>\n However, Mr. Trump did not say in his social media post how Mr. Zelensky would factor into the negotiations that he and Mr. Putin were setting in motion. Mr. Trump has long been skeptical of Ukraine and has never warmed to Mr. Zelensky.<\/p>\n The Kremlin\u2019s spokesman, Dmitri S. Peskov, told reporters that Mr. Putin\u2019s call with Mr. Trump lasted almost an hour and a half.<\/p>\n He said that the two men agreed to hold a personal meeting and that Mr. Putin invited Mr. Trump to visit Moscow, something that Mr. Trump also alluded to in his social media post. Mr. Putin agreed with Mr. Trump that \u201cthe time has come for our countries to work together,\u201d Mr. Peskov said.<\/p>\n On Ukraine, Mr. Putin told Mr. Trump of \u201cthe need to eliminate the root causes of the conflict,\u201d Mr. Peskov said. That was a sign that Mr. Putin would not accept a simple cease-fire in Ukraine and would seek broader concessions from Ukraine and the West before he stops fighting.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n The Ukrainians appear to be facing an effort in which they have little leverage. The call between Mr. Putin and Mr. Trump came on the same day that the U.S. secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth, speaking at the NATO headquarters in Brussels, said<\/a> that it was an \u201cunrealistic\u201d objective for Ukraine to restore its borders as they were before 2014, when Russia annexed Crimea. Mr. Hegseth added that the U.S. does not support Ukraine\u2019s desire to join NATO as part of a realistic peace plan.<\/p>\n He also suggested that Europe needed to assume a greater role in its own defense, echoing a point that Mr. Trump has made for many years.<\/p>\n For Mr. Putin, the call was a major milestone, marking the collapse of Western efforts to isolate him diplomatically after he invaded Ukraine nearly three years ago. Ever since Mr. Trump\u2019s re-election in November, the Russian president has heaped praise on Mr. Trump<\/a>, underlining the Kremlin\u2019s hope that the new American leader could reshape Moscow\u2019s relationship with Washington and back away from supporting Ukraine.<\/p>\n In response to news of the conversation between Mr. Trump and Mr. Putin, the United Nations said Wednesday that it welcomed any efforts leading to peace talks between Russia and Ukraine.<\/p>\n \u201cWe would appreciate any efforts to resolve the war in Ukraine that would involve the Russian and Ukrainian sides, so obviously if both of them are willing to be involved in the process, that would be a welcome development,\u201d said U.N. spokesman Farhan Haq. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Mr. Trump wrote in his social media post that the U.S. negotiating team would include Secretary of State Marco Rubio; John Ratcliffe, the C.I.A. director; his national security adviser, Michael Waltz, and his Mideast envoy, Steve Witkoff. Mr. Witkoff was in Moscow this week and retrieved the American schoolteacher Marc Fogel<\/a>, who was imprisoned for more than three years in Russia.<\/p>\n Mr. Trump did not mention Keith Kellogg, the retired general named by Mr. Trump as his envoy for Russia and Ukraine.<\/p>\n Mr. Trump has repeatedly refused to say whether he\u2019s spoken to Mr. Putin before Wednesday, although individuals who would know of such a call in the U.S. government were not aware of one, according to people briefed on the president\u2019s conversations.<\/p>\n Mr. Trump has often made admiring remarks about the Russian president, whom he called a \u201cgenius\u201d<\/a> after the invasion of Ukraine in 2022. But in the first week of Mr. Trump\u2019s second term, he was more critical, saying the Russian president should not have invaded Ukraine.<\/p>\n \u201cHe can\u2019t be thrilled, he\u2019s not doing so well,\u201d Mr. Trump told reporters<\/a> in the Oval Office hours after he was inaugurated. \u201cRussia is bigger, they have more soldiers to lose, but that\u2019s no way to run a country.\u201d<\/p>\n Farnaz Fassihi and Julian E. Barnes contributed reporting.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n