What’s next after the Trump-Putin call?
Ukrainecast
BBC
4.7 • 1K Ratings
🗓️ 20 May 2025
⏱️ 26 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
After a two-hour phone call on Monday, Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin came to very different conclusions about what was agreed. The US said ceasefire negotiations between Moscow and Kyiv would start “immediately.” The Kremlin meanwhile, said there were no deadlines to move towards peace.
On this episode the BBC’s Russia editor Steve Rosenberg tells us about the reaction to the call in the Russian press. And - as Europe prepares to level further sanctions - Robert Fox, defence editor at the Evening Standard, tells us the West needs to prepare for a longer term conflict.
Today’s episode is presented by Victoria Derbyshire and Vitaly Shevchenko. The producers were Laurie Kalus and Ben Carter. The technical producers were Ben Andrews and Mike Regaard. The series producer is Tim Walklate. The senior news editor is Sam Bonham. Email Ukrainecast@bbc.co.uk with your questions and comments. You can also send us a message or voice note via WhatsApp, Signal or Telegram to +44 330 1239480
You can join the Ukrainecast discussion on Newscast’s Discord server here: tinyurl.com/ukrainecastdiscord
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, Podcasts. |
| 0:04.7 | Hello, it's 1,182 days since Russia began its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. |
| 0:10.5 | Yesterday was a day of phone calls. |
| 0:12.4 | First, Donald Trump briefly called Velodomere Zelensky. |
| 0:15.5 | He then spent around two hours on the phone to Vladimir Putin. |
| 0:19.3 | And after that conversation, President Trump spoke with |
| 0:22.5 | Zelensky again, alongside Emmanuel Macron, Friedrich Mertz, Georgie Maloney and others. |
| 0:29.7 | Here is Donald Trump's assessment of that call with President Putin. This is what he wrote on |
| 0:34.8 | Truth Social. I believe it went very well. |
| 0:42.2 | Russia and Ukraine will immediately start negotiations towards a ceasefire and more importantly, an end to the war. |
| 0:45.5 | The conditions for that will be negotiated between the two parties, as it can only be, |
| 0:49.7 | because they know details of a negotiation that nobody else would be aware of. |
| 0:54.0 | The tone and spirit of the |
| 0:55.9 | conversation were excellent. And I totally agree with Donald Trump that the phone call went very |
| 1:03.5 | well with just one proviso. It went very well for Vladimir Putin. No ceasefire, not even a summit |
| 1:10.0 | meeting between Vladimir Putin, |
| 1:12.2 | Vladimir Zelensky or Donald Trump. What Vladimir Putin said basically focused on more talks. |
| 1:19.5 | So they essentially talked to agree more talks. |
| 1:22.0 | Vladimir Putin said that Russia is prepared to discuss a memorandum with Ukraine about a possible future ceasefire. |
| 1:32.3 | He kept using the words possible and future, and that ceasefire might possibly in the future lead to a peace deal with Ukraine. |
| 1:42.1 | But the Kremlin's spokesman, Dmitri Peskov, said there's no timeline as to when |
| 1:48.6 | the memorandum will be concluded. And it's not even clear if negotiations immediately on a ceasefire |
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