During those calls, he talked about the visit of US representative Steve Witkoff to Moscow and boasted that he would soon travel to Alaska to meet with US President Donald Trump.
Putin spoke with Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, and the call was allegedly initiated by the Armenian side. Pashinyan informed Putin about the outcome of the meeting with Trump and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev in Washington on August 8.
"In turn, Putin spoke about the main outcomes of the talks with the US President's special envoy Steve Witkoff and preparations for a meeting with Donald Trump in Alaska," the Kremlin announced.
The Kremlin press service also reported that Putin spoke by phone with Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, Tajik President Emmomali Rahmon and Kyrgyz President Sadir Japarov over the weekend. He told each of the leaders about his conversation with Witkoff and bragged about arranging a meeting with Trump in Alaska.
Why is this important?
Since the start of the war in Ukraine in 2022, Putin has been"persona non grata" at many international meetings that Russia had previously always attended. He is no longer invited to Europe, USA or other countries. Many country leaders have not visited Russia since then, or even spoken to Putin on the phone, and many countries have closed their airspace to aircraft from Russia. As a result, since 2022, Putin has traveled only to Belarus and some Asian countries.
According to open sources, since the beginning of the war, Putin has visited Belarus (five times), Kazakhstan (four times), China (twice), Turkmenistan (twice), Kyrgyzstan (twice), Uzbekistan (twice), and Tajikistan, Iran, Armenia, UAE, Saudi Arabia, North Korea, Vietnam, Azerbaijan and Mongolia (once each).
Putin had only one trip abroad this year, to Belarus.
Talked to Xi
On August 8, Putin held telephone conversations with Chinese leader Xi Jinping, the presidents of Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Belarus, discussing the US and Ukraine with all of them.
On the same day, he also spoke with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi about Ukraine and bilateral relations.
On August 9, Trump announced that a meeting with Putin would take place in Alaska on August 15.
The media reported that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky could also join the summit.
