The White House on Wednesday said America’s intelligence community would continue to share information with the Ukrainian government to bolster Kyiv’s defensive efforts and provide Ukraine with more Patriot missile defense systems from European stocks.
Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters at a daily press briefing that Trump had “fully briefed” Zelensky on his 90-minute conversation with Russian president Vladimir Putin and relayed the “key issues” discussed during the Tuesday morning conversation, the second call between the two leaders since Trump returned to the presidency in January.
She also said the two leaders had agreed that their respective countries would “continue working together to bring about a real end” to the three-year-old war which started with Russia’s unprovoked invasion in February 2022.
“They reviewed the situation in Kursk and agreed to share information closely between their defense staffs as the battlefield situation evolved. President Zelensky asked for additional air defense systems to protect his civilians, particularly Patriot missile systems, and President Trump agreed to work with him to find what was available, particularly in Europe,” Leavitt said.
Continuing, Leavitt told reporters that Trump and Zelensky had “also agreed on a partial ceasefire against energy” and said negotiating teams would soon meet in Saudi Arabia to discuss expanding that effort to encompass the Black Sea “on the way to a full ceasefire.”
She added that Zelensky and Trump “discussed Ukraine’s electrical supply and nuclear power plants” and suggested that the United States could take ownership of Ukraine’s energy infrastructure as a way of providing what she called “best protection” going forward.
“The presidents instructed their teams to move ahead with the technical issues related to implementing and broadening the partial ceasefire. The presidents instructed their advisors and representatives to carry out this work as quickly as possible,” she said.
The White House readout of the conversation came just hours after Trump described it as a “very good telephone call” in a post on his Truth Social website.
Trump said the conversation, which started at approximately 10:38 a.m. ET, “lasted approximately one hour” and consisted of a discussion with Zelensky that he said was “based on the call made yesterday with President Putin in order to align both Russia and Ukraine in terms of their requests and needs.”
“We are very much on track,” Trump added.
Trump’s call with Zelensky comes as Kyiv continues to weather attacks on energy infrastructure despite Russian leader Vladimir Putin’s claim to have ordered a halt to such attacks following a phone call with Trump one day earlier.
The call was arranged after Zelensky indicated a desire to speak with Trump in the wake of the president’s 90-minute conversation with Putin, after which the White House said the two leaders had agreed on an “energy and infrastructure ceasefire,” with talks to begin “immediately in the Middle East” about a full ceasefire.
Separately, the Kremlin said Putin had agreed to stop strikes on Ukrainian energy infrastructure for the next month, and a separate readout issued from Moscow said the two leaders had a “detailed and frank exchange of views” on Ukraine, with Putin stressing that any resolution to the conflict must be “comprehensive, sustainable and long-term” and take into account Russia’s own security interests.
“It was emphasized that the key condition for preventing the escalation of the conflict and working towards its resolution by political and diplomatic means should be a complete cessation of foreign military assistance and the provision of intelligence information to Kyiv,” the Kremlin added.
But despite Putin’s promise to Trump to halt attacking Kyiv’s energy grid, Russian forces continued to pound Ukrainian infrastructure overnight and continuing into Wednesday, with Ukrainian military officials blaming an overnight Russian missile attack for leaving part of Slovyansk city without electricity.
Meanwhile, Russian authorities said Ukraine attacked an oil depot near the village of Kavkazskaya.
The call between Trump and Zelensky is the first direct contact between the two leaders since Trump administration officials threw Zelensky out of the White House after what was supposed to be a triumphant visit by the Ukrainian leader to mark the signing of a mineral rights dealdevolved into an Oval Office shouting match that ended with a vulgar, grievance-filled rant from President Donald Trump and taunts about Zelensky’s supposed lack of gratitude from Vice President JD Vance.
Zelensky left the White House roughly an hour after the emotional eruption, cutting short talks that were supposed to cement an economic relationship between Washington and Kyiv and create a mechanism to repay the billions in American military aid that has been sent to Ukraine since 2022.
This is a developing story and will be updated…
