MOSCOW (Reuters) -President Vladimir Putin spoke to the leaders of Belarus and Kazakhstan on Sunday to update them on the summit with U.S. President Donald Trump which the Kremlin has cast as a potentially significant stepping stone towards peace in Ukraine.
After his meeting with Trump in Alaska, the first U.S.-Russian summit in more than four years, Putin updated his top officials in the Kremlin on Saturday.
Putin told Russia’s top officials that the visit was timely and “very useful”, adding that he and Trump had spoken about a possible end to the Ukraine war “on a fair basis”, noting the need to deal with the “root causes” of the crisis.
“We have not had direct negotiations of this kind at this level for a long time. I repeat once again: there was an opportunity to calmly and in detail once again set out our position,” Putin told Russian officials.
“We, of course, respect the position of the American administration, which sees the need for a speedy end to military action. Well, we would also like this and would like to move on to resolving all issues by peaceful means.”
The press service of Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said Putin had discussed the talks in Alaska.
“Putin informed his Belarusian counterpart in detail about the results of the last Russia-US summit,” the Lukashenko’s press service said.
Kazakhstan President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev’s press service said that Russia-U.S. talks “contributed to a better understanding of the American side of the Russian position on Ukraine.”
(Reporting by Reuters; Editing by Guy Faulconbridge)
