US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin held a “positive” phone call about talks to end the war in Ukraine, White House Press Secretary Caroline Leavitt wrote Monday, December 29, on her X account.
The conversation between the two leaders was confirmed by Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov. According to him, Trump, together with his advisers, informed Putin about the results of talks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at the US president’s private residence at Mar-a-Lago in Florida on December 28.
Putin, for his part, according to Ushakov, told Trump about an alleged Ukrainian attempt to attack with drones the state residence of the head of state in the Novgorod region, which Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov had announced earlier. Putin’s aide said the “attack” came “virtually immediately after” the Mar-a-Lago talks. The Russian leader told Trump it would not go unanswered, and that Russia’s position in talks to end the war in Ukraine would be reassessed against this backdrop, Ushakov added.
According to Putin’s aide, Trump told the Russian leader he was shocked and outraged by the report of a drone strike on the Russian president’s state residence. The US president also, in discussing the “attempted attack,” said the White House “thank God did not give Tomahawks to Kyiv.”
The White House has not confirmed these statements by Donald Trump.
Lavrov said on the evening of December 29 that overnight Ukraine tried to attack the Russian president’s residence in the Novgorod region using 91 drones. He said all the drones were destroyed. He noted that in light of the attack, “Russia’s negotiating position will be reassessed,” but that Moscow “does not intend to withdraw from the negotiating process with the United States.”
Zelensky called Lavrov’s claim about the attack a lie and said it was because Russia is preparing to strike Kyiv’s government quarter. He also linked the foreign minister’s comments to his talks a day earlier with US President Donald Trump. “It’s clear that for the Russians, if we don’t have a scandal with America - and we have progress - for them it’s a failure. Because they don’t want to end this war,” Zelensky added.
In the Ukrainian president’s view, Moscow is trying to undermine progress achieved in peace talks between Kyiv and Washington. He urged Trump to “respond appropriately to Russian threats.”
That same day, a phone call took place between Zelensky and US President’s special representative Stephen Witkoff, Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council (NSDC) Secretary Rustem Umerov wrote on his X account.
“The key point is coordinating further contacts and next steps. The work is intensive and substantive: we continue consultations and are working through the document points virtually every day,” he wrote. Umerov also noted “constant contact with European national security advisers” and agreements on “next meetings in the near future.”
