Kremlin says reports that Trump spoke to Putin are ‘pure fiction’ | News about the Russia-Ukraine war

The Kremlin has denied reports that US President-elect Donald Trump spoke to Russian President Vladimir Putin in which the American leader reportedly urged Putin not to escalate the war in Ukraine.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Monday called the media reports “pure fiction” and said Putin currently has no concrete plans to talk to Trump.

“That is completely untrue. This is pure fiction, it’s just false information. There was no conversation,” Peskov told reporters.

“This is the most obvious example of the quality of information that is currently being published, sometimes even in quite reputable publications,” Peskov said.

Asked whether Putin had plans for contacts with Trump, Peskov said: “There are no concrete plans yet.”

The Washington Post first reported that Trump held the conversation from his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida on Thursday, just days after his stunning election victory over Democratic rival Kamala Harris.

The Post, citing several people familiar with the call who spoke on condition of anonymity, reported that Trump reminded Putin of the significant U.S. military presence in Europe. They said he also expressed interest in further talks to discuss “the early resolution of the Ukraine war.”

The Reuters news agency also said the call took place, citing sources who were not authorized to reveal their identities to the media.

Steven Cheung, Trump’s communications director, did not confirm the exchange and told AFP in a written statement that “we do not comment on private conversations between President Trump and other world leaders.”

Meanwhile, Ukrainian authorities issued a nationwide warning on Monday and ordered preventive power outages in several cities due to the threat of a new large-scale Russian attack.

“Attention! Missile danger throughout Ukraine! MiG-31K launch,” the Ukrainian Air Force said in a post on Telegram. “The air warning is related to the launch of cruise missiles from Tu-95MS strategic bombers,” it said.

The military administration of the capital Kiev ordered an emergency power outage for the city, saying the outages were due to threats of missile attacks. Ukrainian media reported similar orders for Mykolaiv, Cherkasy, Sumy, Zhytomyr, Kirovohrad and Kharkiv.

Social media footage showed large numbers of people gathering in the city’s subway stations, which have served as bomb shelters since Russia’s war against Ukraine began in February 2022.

However, as of 06:30 GMT, the missiles had not yet arrived. According to some Ukrainian military bloggers, the Russian bombers conducted flights that imitated missile launches.

Monday’s air warnings blared after Russian airstrikes in southern Ukraine killed at least six people and a day after Moscow and Kiev launched record-breaking drone strikes on each other overnight.

Five people were killed in the southern city of Mykolaiv, according to the regional governor. About 300 kilometers east in Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine’s state emergency service said Russia had carried out three airstrikes that killed another man, injured more than a dozen people and damaged several buildings.

Trump’s election is likely to have a major impact on the nearly three-year Ukraine conflict, as he insists on a quick end to the fighting and casts doubt on Washington’s multibillion-dollar support for Kiev.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky spoke with Trump on Wednesday, with billionaire Republican supporter Elon Musk also taking part in the conversation.

President Joe Biden’s outgoing Democratic administration has confirmed it will send as much aid as possible to Ukraine before Trump’s inauguration on January 20.

On Sunday, Biden’s national security adviser Jake Sullivan said the White House aims to “put Ukraine in the best possible position on the battlefield so that ultimately they are in the best possible position at the negotiating table.” This would include using the remaining $6 billion in funding available to Ukraine, Sullivan said.

While Trump hasn’t elaborated on how he plans to end the conflict, his new vice president, JD Vance, has laid out a broad vision.

“What it looks likely to be is the current demarcation line between Russia and Ukraine is becoming a demilitarized zone,” Vance said on the Shawn Ryan Show podcast in September.