Russian President Vladimir Putin revealed that he discussed his country’s role in helping America win its independence during a call with President Donald Trump on July 3 in a bid to highlight the history of cooperation between their nations, according to Russian news agency Tass.
Newsweek has reached out to the White House outside of normal business hours by email on Sunday evening for comment.
Why It Matters
Trump and Putin spoke by phone on Thursday, with the conversation lasting around an hour. The two leaders spoke about the ongoing war in Ukraine, which has drawn no closer to any sign of conclusion despite Trump’s assurances both during and immediately after last year’s presidential election that he would be able to bring the conflict to a swift end.
Trump, however, expressed disappointment with the call, saying the conversation did little to convince him that Putin has any desire to stop his offensive on Ukraine.
“I’m very disappointed with the conversation I had today with President Putin, because I don’t think he’s there. I don’t think he’s there, and I’m very disappointed,” Trump told reporters after a rally in Iowa. “I’m just saying, I don’t think he’s looking to stop, and that’s too bad.”
Russia launched a drone attack on Ukraine within hours of the call, according to Ukrainian officials.
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What To Know
During the call with Trump, Putin drew several hardline stances, telling Trump that Russia will “achieve its goals” and “not retreat from these goals,” according to the Kremlin’s readout of the conversation.
He also described the conversation as “frank, business-like, and concrete.”
But on Sunday, he revealed that he also tried to press upon Trump the historical ties between the two countries, going back to the founding of America.
“We have always had, for a very long time, very good and special relations with the United States,” Putin told Russian television host Pavel Zarubin. “We supported their aspirations for independence from the UK We actually supplied weapons.”
“We helped them with money,” he said. “Afterward, we supported the North during the North-South war. So in this sense we found things that united us.”
The Kremlin confirmed to Tass that Putin had raised the topic of historic Russian support for U.S. independence and ambitions during the July 3 call, and that he had congratulated Trump on Independence Day.
Historian Paul Behringer, in a paper published in 2024, wrote that the Russian Empire and fledgling U.S. enjoyed a “distant friendship,” with first interactions and perceptions between the two nations “mostly positive,” but with no “particularly deep” affinity for each other.
Russia is understood to have maintained a stance of neutrality during the American Revolution, but according to the State Department website, Russia did not recognize the U.S. representative to Russia in 1780 and refused his credentials, doing so again in 1795. Russia first recognized the U.S. in 1803, almost two decades after the U.S. had declared independence from the United Kingdom.
In his paper, Behringer wrote that the U.S. went on to “tacitly” support Russia in the Crimean War, wherein the Russian Empire fought an alliance of the Ottoman Empire, Great Britain, France and Sardinia for nearly three years in the 1850s; Russia returned the favor by supporting the Union in the American Civil War. The goodwill at this time eventually led to Russia selling Alaska to the United States.
“Soon, however, differences in ideology and interests drove the two countries into a more tense and competitive relationship,” the historian added.
What Happens Next
It remains unclear when the next round of negotiations between Russia and Ukraine or Russia and the U.S. might happen, despite Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov saying on June 20 that Moscow expected to determine the date for a third round of talks with Kyiv within a week.
