When Trump calls, even Putin hits pause. The Russian president abruptly left a major event to take a call from Donald Trump, admitting it would be “awkward to make him wait” and perhaps risk offending the famously impatient US president.“Please don’t be angry. I understand that we could talk more. But it’s so awkward to make him (Trump) wait, he could get offended,” Putin said as he signed off mid-event.The two leaders had a long conversation, as described by Trump, over phone on Thursday and they discussed Ukraine and Iran among other issues. “We had a call. It was a pretty long call. We talked about a lot of things, including Iran. We also talked about the war with Ukraine,” Trump said.The US president, however, expressed dissatisfaction with the conversation as the two leaders could not make any progress on Ukraine peace deal.“I am not happy about that… No, I didn’t make any progress with him (Russian President Putin) today,” Trump said.Kremlin said the call ran for nearly an hour, with Putin making it clear he remained firm on Russia’s objectives. “Our president said that Russia will achieve the aims it set, that is to say the elimination of the root causes that led to the current state of affairs. Russia will not give up on these aims,” Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov told reporters, as quoted by AFP.The call came amid US arms shipment pause to Kyiv and rising pressure on Europe to step up support. Putin also urged diplomacy in the Middle East after US strikes on Iran.
