Hello and welcome to the Americano podcast, a series of discussions about American power,

politics and prejudices. The election is over, but the Americano never stops, and there will be a lot to talk about with the second Trump

administration and so we'll bring you more and more Americano because judging from the feedback

that's what you guys want so please keep listening I am delighted to be joined today by

the spectator's very own Russia editor, Owen Matthews,

and we are going to be talking about Trump, Putin and Ukraine, because yesterday the Washington

Post had the scoop that Donald Trump has had a phone call with Vladimir Putin in which

there's no transcript because

Team Trump are now avoiding anything so official.

It was a direct call.

Trump urged Putin not to escalate in Ukraine and we await to see what the consequences

of this call will be.

Oh, and what's your reading of that call?

The surprising thing about the call is that we're not actually sure whether it happened,

because the Kremlin spokesman, Dmiti Piskopf, denied it flatly.

Now, obviously, you know, we've heard a fair amount of untruths, shall we say, to put it mildly

from the mouth of Dmiti Piskof and the Kremlin itself and Putin himself. But it is slightly

unusual for them to actually flatly deny it. So it's a bit of a mystery. But, I mean, let's assume,

regardless of whether this call happened, it will happen inevitably.

It's very clear that Trump wants to tick a box.

He's promised to bring the war in Ukraine, Russia's invasion of Ukraine, to an end in one day.

And the way he has said he will do that is by pressuring the Ukrainians to negotiate with the threat of removing their military aid

...