Russian President Vladimir Putin held a telephone conversation with US President Donald Trump two days after the American delegation led by Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner visited first Moscow and then Kyiv. According to Russian presidential aide Yuri Ushakov, the telephone conversation lasted “exactly an hour” and concerned the settlement of the war in Ukraine.
Vladimir Putin’s assistant Yuri Ushakov told Russian news agencies about the conversation between the presidents. Trump and Putin, he said, exchanged views on the trips of the American President's special envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner to Moscow and Kyiv on September 5-6.
“The results of the stay of the mentioned American representatives were assessed with a plus sign,” Ushakov noted.
The conversation focused on issues of resolving the war in Ukraine. Trump, according to Ushakov, spoke about “the desirability of an early end to the conflict,” since this would open up prospects for restoring relations between the United States and Russia, including in trade and the economy.
He would like to achieve a “breakthrough” during his presidency, and Putin supported his “spirit in the context of possibly building constructive cooperation between the two great powers.”
The Russian president also gave Trump an “objective and thorough analysis” of what was happening on the battlefield, Ushakov said.
The BBC Russian Service has repeatedly written that Vladimir Putin’s statements about the successes of the Russian army at the front often do not correspond to reality. For example, in early September, he stated that the Russian military had recaptured Svyatogorsk in the Donetsk region, but neither Deepstate nor ISW confirmed this. Today, Vladimir Zelensky also rejected the message about the capture of Svyatogorsk.
“By the way, it was outlined what the Americans could actually do to end hostilities as quickly as possible,” he added.
In addition, Putin stressed that Russia “has no aggressive plans” towards European countries.
The American delegation first visited Moscow on Saturday, September 5, and the next day - Kyiv. They returned to the United States on Monday, September 7: a special US Air Force flight landed in Homestead near Miami at 16:50 local time, according to data from the FlightRadar24 service.
The White House has not yet commented on the conversation between Trump and Putin.
This is the fifth telephone conversation between Putin and Trump since the beginning of 2026. The previous time they called on July 4, their conversation, the Kremlin said, lasted almost an hour and a half.
Ushakov, recounting the topics discussed by the presidents, did not mention a possible trilateral meeting between representatives of the United States, Russia and Ukraine. Vladimir Zelensky said that negotiations to end the war could return to a trilateral format with the participation of the United States, Ukraine and Russia.
According to him, in the near future representatives of Ukraine are going to meet “with Europeans and Americans - both at the leadership level and at the level of advisers.” “Next: we will all prepare for a trilateral meeting of Ukraine, Russia and the United States and bring it closer. If all parties agree, we also want to hold it in the fall. If it works out in September, well, great - the sooner the better,” Zelensky told reporters on Tuesday, September 8.
According to him, the meeting could take place in the UAE, Switzerland or Turkey.
The President of Ukraine specifically emphasized that Europe is already part of the negotiations and will participate “in all future formats of negotiations.”
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said today that Moscow is counting on the resumption of trilateral negotiations with the participation of Russia, the United States and Ukraine.
“American negotiators spend a lot of time and effort these days moving between Moscow and Kiev, communicating the positions of both sides. We hope that there will be some progress in this regard. We are counting on the resumption of negotiations in a trilateral format - with the participation of Russia, Ukraine and the United States,” he said.
At the same time, Peskov did not specify when we should expect the resumption of negotiations in this format. He only added that the participation of Europeans in the negotiations could complicate the process rather than help it.
“Suspilne” and “Ukrainian Pravda” wrote that Russia may be ready for negotiations after the State Duma elections, scheduled for September 18-20. European sources told journalists about this: according to both publications, possible negotiations were discussed at a meeting with Witkoff and Kushner in Kyiv, which was also attended by European officials.
Among the topics that could be raised at this trilateral meeting, Vladimir Zelensky today named energy, grain and prisoner exchange.
RBC-Ukraine, citing its own source, reported on Tuesday that following the visit of Trump’s special representatives to Moscow and Kyiv, the possibility of “at least a limited truce, for example, without mutual strikes on energy facilities by winter or for the winter,” is being discussed. “Opportunities for further settlement may arise,” said an informed interlocutor of RBC-Ukraine.
Vladimir Zelensky also said today that he hopes to personally meet with Donald Trump on the 20th of September.
Ukrainian Foreign Ministry spokesman Georgy Tikhy said at a briefing on Tuesday that a personal meeting between Zelensky and Trump at the end of the month has been preliminarily agreed, RBC-Ukraine reports.
The White House has not yet confirmed these plans.
According to Vladimir Zelensky, at a meeting with Trump he plans to discuss arms supplies to Kyiv.
“We need packages of ballistic missiles from the Americans,” he told Ukrainian journalists today. He said he discussed the topic with Witkoff and Kushner, and they “heard what we needed and by when.” “I expect to raise this topic at a meeting on the 20th with President Trump. And, God willing, there will be a result,” Zelensky concluded.
