ISW explains why Putin called Trump
Vladimir Putin used his phone conversation with the U.S. President Donald Trump on April 29 to reaffirm that he has no intention of abandoning his original military objectives in the war against Ukraine, and to portray Russia's victory as inevitable.
According to Ukrinform, the ISW stated this on its website.
"Russian President Vladimir Putin used his April 29 phone call with US President Donald Trump to reiterate his commitment to his original war aims and promote his cognitive warfare effort, falsely portraying Ukraine's defenses as collapsing and Russian victory in Ukraine as inevitable," the report states.
It is noted that Ukraine has largely slowed Russian advances along the front line, blunting Russia's spring-summer 2026 offensive.
Kremlin aide Yury Ushakov said on April 29 that the call between Trump and Putin lasted 1.5 hours, during which Putin informed Trump about the current state of the war in Ukraine, claiming that Russia holds the strategic initiative and is "pushing back" Ukrainian positions, and that Moscow will achieve its military goals "in any case," though it would prefer to do so through diplomatic means.
"Putin and other Kremlin officials have consistently attempted to portray Ukraine as the intransigent party in peace negotiations for refusing to capitulate to Putin's demands, despite Russia's failure to offer meaningful concessions in return, and Putin again reiterated this point to Trump on April 29," analysts say.
ISW experts explain that Putin is falsely trying to claim that Ukraine's defense is collapsing and that Russia's victory is inevitable. The Russian leader once again asserted that Russia is performing well on the battlefield to justify his demand for Ukraine's capitulation.
However, Putin's claims remain false. Ukrainian forces continue to hinder Russian troops from making significant advances in several sections of the front line, particularly in the priority area for Russia — the Donetsk region — and are inflicting increasing losses on Russian forces as they continue offensive operations.
It is also noted that Russians are increasingly feeling the consequences of the war, as the country's economy faces significant challenges, losses continue to grow, and recruiting new personnel is becoming more difficult.
"The Kremlin is very likely attempting to mitigate some of these costs by attempting to convince Trump and the West to push Ukraine to capitulate in a way that Russia's full-scale invasion has failed to do and is obfuscating its own military and economic failures as part of this effort," the report states.
As Ukrinform reported, total combat losses of Russian forces since the start of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, from February 24, 2022, to April 30, 2026, amount to approximately 1,330,290 personnel, including 1,470 in the past day.
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