By Jeff Mason, Guy Faulconbridge and Lidia Kelly
ABOARD AIR FORCE ONE/MOSCOW (Reuters) -U.S. President Donald Trump said on Sunday he believed the United States was making progress in its talks to end the war between Russia and Ukraine, but declined to provide details about any communications he had had with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One, Trump indicated that the two men had been in contact; that would mark the first officially acknowledged conversation between Putin and a U.S president since early 2022.
Asked whether he had had his conversation with Putin since he became president on January 20 or before, Trump said: “I’ve had it. Let’s just say I’ve had it...And I expect to have many more conversations. We have to get that war ended.”
“If we are talking, I don’t want to tell you about the conversations,” Trump said. “I do believe we’re making progress. We want to stop the Ukraine-Russia war.”
The president said the United States was in touch with Russia and Ukraine. "We're talking to both sides," he said.
Trump has promised to end the war but not set out yet in public how he would do so.
In a Friday interview with the New York Post, Trump said that he had "better not say" how many times he and Putin had spoken and did not disclose when the latest conversation had taken place.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told the TASS state news agency that "many different communications are emerging."
"I personally may not know something, be unaware of something," Peskov said when asked by TASS to comment. "Therefore, in this case, I can neither confirm nor deny it."
U.S. National Security Adviser Mike Waltz also declined to elaborate when asked about communications between the two countries.
"There certainly are a lot of sensitive conversations going on," Waltz said on NBC News.
TRUMP-PUTIN SUMMIT?
Trump has repeatedly said he wants to end the war and that he will meet with Putin to discuss it, though the date or venue for such a meeting has not been announced. Trump told reporters on Sunday that he would meet with Putin at an appropriate time.
Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are seen by Russia as possible venues for a summit, Reuters reported earlier this month.
In the coming days, a flurry of U.S. officials are heading to Europe in part to discuss the war, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, Vice President JD Vance and Keith Kellogg (NYSE:K), the special envoy for the Ukraine war.
Waltz indicated that Trump would be willing to use sanctions and tariffs to coax Putin to the negotiating table.
Waltz said U.S. and Ukrainian officials would discuss the United States gaining access to Ukraine's rare earth resources as compensation for U.S. aid to the eastern European ally.
On June 14, Putin set out his opening terms for an immediate end to the war: Ukraine must drop its NATO ambitions and withdraw its troops from the entirety of the territory of four Ukrainian regions claimed and mostly controlled by Russia.
Reuters reported in November that Putin is open to discussing a Ukraine peace deal with Trump but rules out making any major territorial concessions and insists that Kyiv abandon ambitions to join NATO.
The Kremlin has repeatedly urged caution over speculation about contacts with the Trump team over a possible peace deal.
Leonid Slutsky, head of the Russian parliament's international affairs committee, was cited by the state RIA news agency on Thursday as saying that preparations for such a meeting were at "an advanced stage" and that it could take place in February or March.
Putin last spoke to former U.S. President Joe Biden in February 2022, shortly before Putin ordered thousands of troops into Ukraine.
Washington Post journalist Bob Woodward (NASDAQ:WWD) in his 2024 book "War" reported that Trump had direct conversations as many as seven times with Putin after he left the White House in 2021.
Asked if that were true in an interview to Bloomberg last year, Trump said: "If I did, it's a smart thing." The Kremlin denied Woodward's report.
Reuters, The Washington Post and Axios reported separately that Trump and Putin talked in early November. The Kremlin also denied those reports.
On Friday, Trump said he would probably meet Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy the following week to discuss ending the war. Zelenskiy told Reuters that he wanted Ukraine to supply the United States with rare earths and other minerals in return for financially supporting its war effort.
Putin sent thousands of troops into Ukraine in 2022, calling it a "special military operation" to protect Russian speakers and counter what he said was a grave threat to Russia from potential Ukrainian membership of NATO.
Ukraine and its Western backers, led by the United States, said the invasion was an imperial-style land grab and vowed to defeat Russian forces.
Moscow controls a chunk of Ukraine about the size of the American state of Virginia and is advancing at the fastest pace since the early days of the 2022 invasion.