Click to view full size

Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump said he and Russ­ian Pres­i­dent Vladimir Putin agreed dur­ing a phone call Wednes­day to be­gin “ne­go­ti­a­tions” on end­ing the Ukraine war and would “work to­geth­er, very close­ly” to­ward wind­ing down the con­flict.

“We each talked about the strengths of our re­spec­tive Na­tions, and the great ben­e­fit that we will some­day have in work­ing to­geth­er,” Trump said in a so­cial me­dia post dis­clos­ing de­tails about a call that fol­lowed a pris­on­er swap be­tween the two na­tions. “But first, as we both agreed, we want to stop the mil­lions of deaths tak­ing place in the War with Rus­sia/Ukraine.

The Re­pub­li­can pres­i­dent said the lead­ers al­so “agreed to have our re­spec­tive teams start ne­go­ti­a­tions im­me­di­ate­ly” and would be alert­ing Ukrain­ian leader Volodymyr Ze­len­skyy about their con­ver­sa­tion.