Russia denies phone conversation between Putin, Trump

ISTANBUL

The Kremlin on Monday denied media reports suggesting that a phone conversation took place between Russian President Vladimir Putin and US President-elect Donald J. Trump.

On Thursday, Putin and Trump held a phone conversation during which the latter told the Russian president to not escalate the ongoing Ukraine war, which nears its 1,000th day, media outlets, including the Washington Post, reported citing anonymous sources.

"There was no conversation. This is completely untrue, it is pure fiction," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters in the Russian capital Moscow.

Peskov went on to describe such publications to be the “most obvious example of the quality of the information that is now being published, sometimes even in fairly respected publications."

Expressing that there are no concrete plans yet to organize a phone conversation between the two leaders, Peskov further said that Kremlin is seeing a “certain nervousness” in Europe following Trump’s reelection as president.

He said it is too early to talk about a change in Europe's position with regards to the Ukraine war.

“We are currently reading a lot of information, we do not know to what extent it corresponds to reality. But there are statements by European representatives, and official statements, which speak of the continuation of their general line of providing all kinds of support ... pumping weapons into Ukraine in order to continue this war to the end,” he added.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​