President Trump held a nearly 90-minute phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Saturday in which he offered to help find a solution to the war in Ukraine, the Kremlin said, and spoke separately the same day with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy ahead of a NATO summit that opens Tuesday in Ankara.
The twin calls place Trump at the center of a diplomatic push days after Russia carried out the largest missile-and-drone barrage of the war on Kyiv and Ukrainian drones struck one of Russia's largest oil terminals in St. Petersburg. Both sides are maneuvering to shape the agenda before Trump lands in Turkey for a gathering of 32 heads of state.
What the Kremlin said
Kremlin foreign policy aide Yury Ushakov said Trump "once again confirmed his readiness to work towards a rapid end to the fighting and find solutions to overcome the crisis," and characterized the exchange as "businesslike and quite constructive." Russia, Ushakov said, seeks "a political-diplomatic resolution of the conflict, with due account of Russia's fundamental approach" — Kremlin phrasing for Moscow's territorial demands in eastern Ukraine.
Ushakov accused Kyiv and its European allies of "counting on extending and even escalating the conflict, and on terrorism against civilians," a reference to Ukraine's deep strikes on Russian energy targets. Putin also sent Trump a July 4 congratulatory note calling for "constructive relations" between Washington and Moscow, the BBC reported.
Zelenskyy's readout
Zelenskyy said on Telegram that he and Trump discussed the war's 1,200-kilometer, or 745-mile, front line and agreed to continue talks at the summit. "There is a real prospect to end this war and American resolve will have a crucial meaning," the Ukrainian president wrote.
Hours before the calls, Ukrainian drones hit an oil terminal in St. Petersburg that Ukraine's military described as "one of the largest" in Russia, capable of producing 12.5 million tonnes of petroleum products a year. St. Petersburg Governor Aleksandr Beglov called the overnight assault a "massive" drone attack and said 72 Ukrainian drones had been shot down over the city and surrounding Leningrad region. Kyiv also claimed a strike on a Baltic Fleet naval base at Kronstadt.
The targets sit roughly 850 kilometers, or 528 miles, from Ukraine's border. Zelenskyy described the terminal as "infrastructure that generates revenue for Russia's war." Ukraine has said its long-range campaign has disabled about 43 percent of Russia's oil refining capacity, a figure the BBC has not verified; Putin last week made a rare admission that Ukrainian strikes had caused fuel shortages and signed a bill Saturday aimed at boosting domestic gasoline supplies.
The front line
Russia and Ukraine traded conflicting claims about Kostyantynivka, one of the fortified towns in Ukraine's eastern fortress belt. Putin, in military fatigues on Friday, said Russian forces had captured the town in June and provided no evidence. Ukrainian military spokesman Maj. Andriy Kovalyov told the BBC that "Kostyantynivka remains under the control of the Defence Forces of Ukraine," acknowledging "cases of infiltration by small infantry groups deep into the combat formations of our forces" that were being destroyed. Zelenskyy dared Putin to meet him there.
Russia's defense ministry, in an operational bulletin Saturday, said it had shot down more than 500 Ukrainian drones and missiles overnight and cast the long-range campaign as an attempt to "distract the attention" of "foreign sponsors" from a "catastrophic failure" at Kostyantynivka.
Neither the White House nor the State Department detailed on Saturday what proposals Trump conveyed to either capital, and no American administration officials were quoted in the initial Russian or Ukrainian readouts. Trump has previously said he could end the war within a day of returning to office; the outlines of a settlement acceptable to Kyiv and to Moscow's stated territorial demands have not been described publicly by either side.
Trump is scheduled to arrive in Ankara on Tuesday. NATO leaders are set to meet July 7 and 8.