Trump and Putin ‘discuss Ukraine in call’ – as Biden to urge president-elect ‘not to walk away’ from Kyiv
Donald Trump urged Vladimir Putin not to escalate the war in Ukraine in a phone call the day after the presidential election, according to reports.
The US president-elect also reminded the Russian president of America’s sizeable military presence in Europe during the conversation on Thursday, according to The Washington Post and Reuters, citing sources familiar with the call.
According to several other sources, the pair went on to discuss the goal of peace on the continent, as well as the prospect of a further call soon to look into the resolution of the conflict in Ukraine.
US election latest: Trump ‘held phone call with Putin’
On Friday, the Kremlin said Mr Putin was ready to discuss Ukraine with Mr Trump – but that did not mean he was willing to alter Moscow’s demands – namely that Ukraine drops its ambitions to join NATO and surrenders the four territories currently held by Russia.
The Washington Post said two sources indicated the Ukrainian government was informed of the call between Mr Trump and Mr Putin – and did not object to the conversation taking place.
However, Ukraine’s foreign ministry said it was “impossible” that Ukraine would have endorsed such a call and that reports otherwise were “false”.
When asked about the call, Mr Trump’s communications director Steven Cheung said: “We do not comment on private calls between President Trump and other world leaders.”
The Russian embassy in Washington has so far not commented.
Trump at his election watch party at the Palm Beach Convention Center. Pic: AP
Meanwhile, US President Joe Biden, who will hand over power on 20 January, will warn Mr Trump and Congress not to abandon Ukraine, according to one of the president’s top officials.
The president-elect and sitting president will meet on Wednesday in the Oval Office, a week after Mr Trump beat Democratic nominee Kamala Harris in the election.
In an interview with CBS News, national security adviser Jake Sullivan said: “President Biden will have the opportunity over the next 70 days to make the case to the Congress and to the incoming administration that the United States should not walk away from Ukraine, that walking away from Ukraine means more instability in Europe.”
President Joe Biden walks to speak in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington. Pic: AP
Under Mr Biden, Washington has provided tens of billions of dollars of military and economic aid to Ukraine – funding that Mr Trump, and some of his supporters, have repeatedly criticised and rallied against.
Mr Trump insisted last year that Mr Putin never would have invaded Ukraine if he had been in the White House at the time and has repeatedly said he could settle the war “in one day” if he was re-elected again.
Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelenskyy when they met in September. Pic: Reuters
On Sunday night, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said strength and diplomacy must work together to bring the two-and-a-half-year war to an end.
“We understand very clearly that diplomacy has no prospects without strength,” he said.
“But without a clear understanding of diplomatic goals, weapons alone will not do the job. That’s why strength and diplomacy must work hand in hand.”
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It comes as both Russia and Ukraine launched “record” drone attacks on each other overnight on Saturday, injuring a woman and temporarily halting air traffic at some of Russia’s busiest airports.
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Russia launched 145 drones overnight, according to Ukraine, 62 of which were shot down, as the two countries attacked each other.
Russia’s defence ministry said 70 drones were shot down in its territory, including 34 over the outskirts of the capital Moscow.
Donald Trump has said he wants to meet North Korean leader Kim Jong Un again.
Speaking at the White House as he held talks with the new South Korean president Lee Jae Myung, Mr Trump told reporters: “I’d like to meet him this year… I look forward to meeting with Kim Jong Un in the appropriate future.”
“I’d like to have a meeting. I got along great with him,” President Trump said, adding they “became very friendly” during his first term in office.
“We think we can do something in that regard,” he said, adding that he would like to help the relationship between the two Koreas.
Trump and Kim at the demilitarized zone in June 2019. Pic: Reuters
Mr Trump and Mr Kim held three meetings between 2018 and 2019 during Mr Trump’s first term and exchanged a number of, what the president called, “beautiful” letters.
In June 2019, Mr Trump briefly stepped into North Korea from the demilitarized zone (DMZ) with South Korea.
The US president on Monday responded to a question about whether he would return to the DMZ by fondly recalling the last time he did so.
“Remember when I walked across the line and everyone went crazy?” especially the Secret Service, Mr Trump told reporters in the Oval Office.
But “I loved it”, Mr Trump said. He added he felt safe because he had a good relationship with Mr Kim.
Mr Trump met South Korea’s Lee Jae Myung at the Oval Office on Monday. Pic: Reuters
Mr Trump became the first sitting American president to set foot on North Korean soil six years ago.
However, little progress was made in curbing North Korea’s nuclear programme, and Mr Trump acknowledged in March this year that Pyongyang is a “nuclear power”.
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Since Mr Trump’s first-term meetings with Mr Kim ended, North Korea has shown no interest in returning to talks.
The White House said in June that Mr Trump would welcome communications with Mr Kim.
The attempts at rapprochement come after the election in South Korea of Mr Lee, who has pledged to reopen dialogue with North Korea.
As a gesture of engagement in June, Mr Lee suspended South Korean loudspeakers blasting music and messages into the North at the DMZ along their shared border.
Analysts say, however, that engaging North Korea will likely be more difficult for both Mr Lee and Mr Trump than it was in the president’s first term.
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Since then, North Korea has significantly expanded its nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programmes.
And it has developed close ties with Russia through direct support for Moscow’s war in Ukraine, with Pyongyang providing both troops and weaponry.
Mr Kim told Russian President Vladimir Putin that his country will always stand with Moscow, state media reported in June.
US rapper Lil Nas X has pleaded not guilty after being charged with assaulting a police officer while walking in downtown Los Angeles in his underwear.
The musician, real name Montero Lamar Hill, was taken to hospital and arrested after police responded to reports of a naked man shortly before 6am on Thursday.
The district attorney’s office said on Monday that Lil Nas X faces three counts of battery with injury on a police officer and one count of resisting an executive officer.
He was being held on a $75,000 (£55,457) bail, conditional on attending drug treatment. It is not immediately clear whether he had posted it and been released yet.
He is set to return to court on 15 September for his next pre-trial hearing.
Pic: AP
During the hearing on Monday, Hill’s lawyer Christy O’Connor told the judge he had led a “remarkable” life, adding: “Assuming the allegations here are true, this is an absolute aberration in this person’s life.
“Nothing like this has ever happened to him.”
A law enforcement source told Sky’s US partner network, NBC News, on Thursday that the Old Town Road and Industry Baby hitmaker punched an officer twice in the face during the encounter.
The source added officers were unsure whether he was on any substances or in mental distress.
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NBC News cited TMZ footage where Hill was seen walking down the middle of Ventura Boulevard at 4am on Thursday in a pair of white briefs and cowboy boots.
In the videos, Hill tells a driver to “come to the party” in one clip and in another tells the person: “Didn’t I tell you to put the phone down?”
“Uh oh, someone’s going to have to pay for that,” Hill says as he continues to walk away.
In some clips, Hill struts as if he’s on a catwalk, posing for onlookers, and at one point he places an orange traffic cone on his head.
A man who was wrongly deported from the US to El Salvador has been detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) again.
Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a 30-year-old originally from El Salvador, handed himself into the ICE field office in Baltimore, Maryland, for a check-in on Monday.
The visit was a mandatory condition of his release from federal custody earlier this weekend. However, in a court filing on Saturday, his lawyers said they expected Garcia would be detained again upon attending.
Garcia is charged in an indictment, filed in federal court in Tennessee, with conspiring to transport illegal immigrants into the US.
An emotional Kilmar Abrego Garcia appears outside the ICE Baltimore field office on 25 August 2025. Pic: Reuters
According to a court filing by his lawyers, immigration officials made an offer to Garcia to be deported to Costa Rica in exchange for pleading guilty to the charges.
Otherwise, they would seek to deport him to Uganda.
Pics: Reuters
Speaking at a news conference outside the ICE office on Monday morning, Garcia said via a translator: “This administration has hit us hard, but I want to tell you guys something: God is with us, and God will never leave us.
“God will bring justice to all the injustice we are suffering.”
Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, one of Garcia’s lawyers, also said: “There was no need to take him into ICE detention… the only reason they took him into detention was to punish him.”
A judge later ruled Garcia could not be deported after he filed a challenge asking to be allowed due process to fight any removal attempt.
Judge Paula Xinis ruled the 30-year-old must remain detained in the US until she can hold an evidentiary hearing – set for Wednesday.
She added there appeared to be “several grounds” for her to have jurisdiction to exercise relief, including that Uganda has not agreed to offer Garcia protections, such as being able to walk freely, being given refugee status, and not being re-deported to El Salvador.
After initially being detained in Maryland – where he lived with his American wife and children – by ICE in March, Garcia was sent to El Salvador, where he was then imprisoned in the country’s maximum security Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT).
This was despite an immigration judge’s 2019 order granting him protection from deportation after finding he was likely to be persecuted by local gangs if he was returned to his native country.
Garcia was first detained by ICE in March. Pic: CASA/AP
The Trump administration admitted deporting Garcia was an “administrative error”, but said at the time they could not bring him back as they do not have jurisdiction over El Salvador.
After eventually returning him to the US in June, the Trump administration detained Garcia on criminal charges that were filed in May.
The criminal indictment alleges Garcia worked with at least five co-conspirators to bring immigrants to the US illegally and transport them from the border to other destinations in the country.
Minutes after his release on Friday, officials notified Garcia they intended to deport him to Uganda.
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Homeland Security secretary Kristi Noem, US President Donald Trump, vice president JD Vance and other officials claim Garcia was a member of MS-13 – an international criminal gang formed by immigrants who had fled El Salvador‘s civil war to protect Salvadoran immigrants from rival gangs.
Garcia’s lawyers strongly deny the claims.
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