Trump presses Putin and Zelenskyy on ending Ukraine war before G7
Trump called Putin and Zelenskyy on his 80th birthday as G7 loomed, but the only concrete change was more talk in France.
Donald Trump spent part of his 80th birthday pressing both sides of the Ukraine war toward talks, but the public readouts from Moscow and Kyiv pointed more to diplomatic theater than to a breakthrough. The president spoke separately with Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelenskyy just before traveling overnight to France for the June 15-17 G7 summit in Evian-les-Bains, where Ukraine is expected to dominate the agenda.
The Kremlin said Trump’s call with Putin lasted just under an hour. Yuri Ushakov said Trump emphasized the need to end hostilities and said he was ready to help influence European allies and Kyiv. Moscow also cast the exchange as a possible opening to broader ties, saying Trump suggested that ending the war quickly could lead to “a truly new quality of U.S.-Russian relations.”
Zelenskyy’s call with Trump was shorter, lasting about 30 to 35 minutes, according to his adviser Dmytro Lytvyn. Zelenskyy called the conversation “wonderful,” thanked Trump for supporting Ukraine, and said the two discussed what could bring peace closer now. He said Ukraine’s position along the eastern front line had improved and strengthened, and that they would talk more at the G7 summit in France.
That framing left Trump with a familiar balancing act: press Putin to stop the fighting while signaling to Zelenskyy that U.S. support remains in play. Senior U.S. officials said Trump will take part in a G7 working session with Zelenskyy, but no separate bilateral meeting was formally scheduled. The White House did not confirm the Kremlin’s claim that Trump raised the need to prevent further civilian strikes from complicating a settlement.
The calls came against a backdrop of war still defined by battlefield pressure and stalled diplomacy. On June 4, Putin said Trump’s peace proposals could end the fighting if Kyiv was ready to compromise, while insisting Russian forces were advancing and that Russia would defeat Ukraine if necessary. Trump’s birthday diplomacy, for now, changed the narrative around the war more than the war itself.
This article was produced by Prism’s automated news system from verified source data, official records, and press releases, then run through automated quality and moderation checks before publishing. The system is built and supervised by the people who set the standards it runs under. Read our full AI policy.
Know something we missed? Have a correction or additional information?
Submit a Tip
