President Donald Trump staged a Thursday morning phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin where they discussed issues including a ceasefire with Ukraine, as well as diplomatic solutions with Iran, Reuters reported.
Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov told reporters that Trump "again raised the issue of an early end to military action" in Ukraine, but that Putin refused to back down from accomplishing his original goals for the region.
"Vladimir Putin, for his part, noted that we continue to seek a political and negotiated solution to the conflict," Ushakov said.
"Our president also said that Russia will achieve the goals it has set: that is, the elimination of the well-known root causes that led to the current state of affairs, to the current acute confrontation, and Russia will not back down from these goals," he added.
Reuters reported that the phrase "root causes" Putin used "is shorthand for the Kremlin's argument that it was compelled to go to war in Ukraine to prevent the country from joining NATO and being used by the Western alliance as a launch pad to attack Russia."
Ushakov said that Putin and Trump "did not talk about the U.S. decision to halt some shipments of critical weapons to Ukraine."
Trump has not yet spoken about the phone call.