LOS ANGELES, May 22 (Xinhua) -- What U.S. President Donald Trump told European leaders after his two-hour phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin has triggered controversy.
Three days after the high-stake talks for Trump, The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday, citing senior European officials familiar with the conversation, that Trump told European leaders that Putin "isn’t ready to end the Ukraine war because he thinks he is winning."
The White House denied this account immediately. Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, said that Trump "did say he believes Putin is winning the war, but he never said ’Putin isn’t ready to end the war’."
During the call, Trump said several times that "he believes Putin wants peace and wants the war to be over," Leavitt noted.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov also dismissed the WSJ report, saying Russia was only aware of what was said during the phone call between the two leaders on Monday.
"Look, we know what Trump told Putin. We don’t know what Trump told the Europeans after that phone call. We know the official statement by President Trump," Peskov said.
According to Trump, the afterward call’s participants included Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.
The controversy came as European officials accused Trump of handing Putin a win after their phone call since he suggested abandoning being a mediator in ending the war and refused to impose fresh sanctions on Russia.
"Several European officials said the message they took from the call was that they should not expect the United States to join them any time soon in piling additional financial pressure onto Mr. Putin," The New York Times said in a analysis published Thursday.
"The disagreement between the Americans and the Europeans over support for Ukraine will likely come to a head over two nearly back-to-back summits: the Group of 7 in Canada in mid-June and the NATO summit a week later in The Hague," the report added.
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