By Dmitry Antonov and Andrew Osborn
MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russian President Vladimir Putin is ready to hold a phone call with U.S. President Donald Trump and Moscow is waiting for word from Washington that he is ready too, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Friday.
Trump said Thursday he wanted to meet with Putin as soon as possible to ensure an end to the war with Ukraine and expressed his desire to work to cut nuclear weapons, which the Kremlin said Putin had made clear he wanted too.
Asked if Putin and Trump would use this weekend to hold their first phone call since Trump’s inauguration – a vital precursor before a face-to-face meeting for deeper discussions – Peskov said:
“Putin is ready. We are waiting for signals (from Washington). Everyone is ready. It is difficult to read the coffee grounds here. As soon as there is something, if there is something, we we will inform.”
Trump, speaking to the World Economic Forum in Davos via video link on Thursday, said he wanted to work on cutting nuclear weapons, adding that he believed Russia and China could support reducing their own capabilities of weapons.
“We would like to see denuclearization…and I will tell you that President Putin really liked the idea of going down the nuclear path. And I think the rest of the world, we would have had them follow it, and China would have come too,” Trump said.
Peskov said Putin had made it clear that he wanted to resume nuclear disarmament negotiations as soon as possible, but that such discussions should be broader than in the past to cover the nuclear arsenals of other countries, including those of France and Great Britain.
“So there is something to say, we need to talk,” Peskov said.
The New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, or New Start, which caps the number of strategic nuclear warheads the United States and Russia can deploy, and the deployment of land-based missiles and bombers and submarines to deliver them, is expected to run out on February 5, 2026.
It is the last remaining pillar of nuclear arms control between the world’s two largest nuclear powers.
Oil price
Commenting on Trump’s Davos demand for OPEC and Saudi Arabia to reduce the price of oil and the idea that lower prices could hasten the end of the Ukrainian war, Peskov said:
“No. This conflict does not depend on oil prices. This conflict arises due to the threat to the national security of the Russian Federation, due to the threat to Russians who live in well-known territories, and in due to the complete refusal of the Americans and Europeans to listen to Russia’s concerns.
By “well-known territories”, Peskov meant parts of eastern Ukraine that Russia has captured since the start of the war and claimed as its own, in actions that most United Nations countries have condemned. as illegal.
Peskov also disputed Trump’s assertion that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy was ready to strike a peace deal, pointing out that Zelenskiy had, in a decree in 2022, ruled out all negotiations with Putin.
“In order to reach a settlement, it is necessary to hold negotiations. (But) Zelenskiy prohibited himself from leading in his own decree.”
Zelenskiy said this week that at least 200,000 European peacekeepers would be needed to prevent another Russian attack on Ukraine after any ceasefire agreement.