No end in sight: Kremlin says Putin rejects Trump’s Ukraine truce call

Briefing reporters after an hour-long phone conversation between the two presidents, Kremlin foreign policy aide Yuri Ushakov said Moscow will continue to seek a diplomatic solution to the ongoing conflict but will not leave its root causes unaddressed.

Moscow: Russia’s campaign against Ukraine will continue till all the objectives are achieved, President Vladimir Putin said during a phone conversation with his US counterpart Donald Trump on Thursday, the Kremlin said.

Briefing reporters after an hour-long phone conversation between the two presidents, Kremlin foreign policy aide Yuri Ushakov said Moscow will continue to seek a diplomatic solution to the ongoing conflict but will not leave its root causes unaddressed.

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Putin declined Trump’s call for the earliest possible truce to end the almost four-and-half-year-long war. He however, expressed readiness to achieve a negotiated solution through political dialogue with Kiev, Ushakov said.

President Trump in turn, called on the Russian president to cease the hostilities as soon as possible.

In his sixth phone conversation with Trump since he assumed the presidency, Putin congratulated him on the eve of the US Independence Day and said that Russia also had a role in the US war of independence.

“During the American Revolution, Russian Empress Catherine II rejected the UK’s diplomatic overtures and refused to send the Russian Army to North America to aid the British Empire in its fight against the thirteen colonies,” Putin said.

Ushakov said that the two leaders, among other issues, discussed the situation concerning Iran as well as the developments in West Asia. Putin stressed the importance of resolving all disputes, disagreements and conflict matters exclusively via political and diplomatic channels, Ushakov added.