Key takeaways from latest Putin-Trump phone call

Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President Donald Trump spoke over the phone on Thursday amid renewed tensions over potential deliveries of American Tomahawk cruise missiles to Ukraine and stalled peace talks.

The U.S. leader described the conversation as “very productive” and announced plans for a summit with Putin in Hungary’s capital, Budapest.

Putin’s top aide, Yury Ushakov, later released a statement summarizing the phone call, RT reported.

The conversation, which lasted nearly two and a half hours, was “very substantive and at the same time extremely frank,” Ushakov said, according to RT. He added that Putin congratulated Trump on his “successful” efforts to mediate a ceasefire in Gaza.

Putin emphasized that Moscow seeks “a peaceful political-diplomatic resolution” of the conflict. At the same time, he noted that Russian troops held “strategic initiative” across all sections of the front line, according to Ushakov, and that Moscow was “responding appropriately” to Ukrainian strikes on civilian targets.

Although the potential delivery of Tomahawks would “not change the situation on the battlefield,” it would “severely undermine the prospects of a peaceful settlement,” as well as bilateral relations, Putin said, according to Ushakov’s statement cited by RT.

The cruise missiles have a range of up to 2,500 km and could reach deep inside Russia, including Moscow. 

Ushakov said the sides would immediately begin arranging the next Putin-Trump summit, with Budapest as a possible location. Preparations would include a phone call between Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban wrote on X that he had also spoken to Trump and that preparations for the summit were underway.

Tomahawks are the latest offensive weapons Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy requested from the US. 

Trump previously signaled that he was considering approving the request, citing the lack of progress in peace talks with Russia, but has so far declined to give a definitive answer.

“We need Tomahawks for the United States of America too. We have a lot of them but we need them. I mean, we can’t deplete (our own arsenal),” Trump told reporters at the Oval Office after the call with Putin. 

Trump is expected to host Zelenskyy at the White House on Friday.