Moscow
Russia has denied reports claiming that US President-elect Donald Trump held a phone conversation with Russian President Vladimir Putin following Trump’s victory in the presidential election last week. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov dismissed the reports as “completely untrue” and described them as “pure fiction” during a media briefing on Monday.
Peskov also questioned the credibility of the US media outlets that published the reports, suggesting that they were not up to the standards of reliable journalism. “This is the most obvious example of the quality of information now being published, sometimes even in fairly respected publications,” he added.
The media report, which surfaced late Sunday, claimed that Trump had called Putin from his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida. It suggested that during the conversation, Trump urged Putin to avoid escalating the ongoing conflict in Ukraine and expressed a desire to foster discussions aimed at resolving the war that has been raging since February 2022. The report further stated that Trump emphasized the importance of the US military presence in Europe, signaling his intention to leverage American influence to help de-escalate tensions.
The Ukrainian government also confirmed that it had not been informed about any such conversation between the two leaders. This latest development has sparked further controversy, especially as Trump had made “ending the war” a central promise during his election campaign.
