Trump: “Great Progress Made” Towards Peace In Putin Call, Gaza Deal Paves Way For Ukraine Truce

President Trump has just concluded his “lengthy” phone conversation with Russian President Vladimir Putin, after which he declared on Truth Social that “great progress was made” towards peace in the Ukraine conflict.

He further called it “a very productive” conversation wherein Putin congratulated him on the “Great Accomplishment of Peace in the Middle East” – in reference to the Gaza peace deal.

Importantly, Trump then emphasized, “I actually believe that the Success in the Middle East will help in our negotiation in attaining an end to the War with Russia/Ukraine.”

Trump signaled there will be a high level meeting between US and Russian officials, and eventually another direct Trump-Putin summit, which he said would eventually happen in Budapest Hungary.

According to more from Trump’s statement:

We also spent a great deal of time talking about Trade between Russia and the United States when the War with Ukraine is over.

At the conclusion of the call, we agreed that there will be a meeting of our High Level Advisors, next week. The United States’ initial meetings will be led by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, together with various other people, to be designated. A meeting location is to be determined.

President Putin and I will then meet in an agreed upon location, Budapest, Hungary, to see if we can bring this “inglorious” War, between Russia and Ukraine, to an end.

President Zelenskyy and I will be meeting tomorrow, in the Oval Office, where we will discuss my conversation with President Putin, and much more.

I believe great progress was made with today’s telephone conversation.

But the reality is Trump is still unwilling to pressure Kiev on making territorial concessions (at least publicly, and as far as we know), and there also needs to be more robust guarantees of never joining NATO. All the while Trump is said to be mulling Tomahawk missiles. The full note…

As for the Kremlin side, it issued a much vaguer initial statement, also agreeing that it was a “positive and productive” phone call.

But at least the two sides are talking, but let’s hope it actually leads somewhere – and fast – before Europe leads to West further up the escalation ladder toward WW3-style nuclear confrontation with Moscow.