By Stefan J. Bos, Chief International Correspondent Worthy News
MOSCOW/ISTANBUL/BUDAPEST (Worthy News) – Russia’s President Vladimir Putin said Thursday that his contacts with U.S. President Donald J. Trump and his administration had “inspired hope” as both sides began talks on how to restore relations and end the war in Ukraine.
Putin’s remarks came on ahead of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s visit to the White House after he complained about feeling left out of talks on the future of his nation that Moscow invaded three years ago.
As Zelenskyy prepared to meet Trump, U.S. teams held six hours of talks in Turkey on Thursday to restore their embassies’ normal functioning, officials said.
The talks focused narrowly on the conditions of each other’s diplomats.
The gathering provided an early test of the two countries’ ability to reset broader relations amid a Trump administration outreach effort that has alarmed Washington’s European allies and Kyiv.
In Moscow, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said the Istanbul talks were expected to be the first in a series of contacts to build confidence and remove “irritants” in bilateral relations.
In an example of judicial cooperation, the office of Russia’s prosecutor general announced that Dmitry Koshelev, wanted by Moscow on suspicion of stealing $1.5 million from a courier at gunpoint in 2014, was being deported from the United States on Thursday.
Washington described Thursday’s talks as “constructive.”
Copyright 1999-2025 Worthy News. This article was originally published on Worthy News and was reproduced with permission.
More Worthy News
Mass protests against Hamas continued in Gaza on Wednesday—following two days of demonstrations last week, marking the most significant unrest in 18 months—as the terror group tortured and killed two protesters, threatened a crackdown, and drew vows of revenge from the victims’ families.
A night raid by suspected Fulani militants in Bokkos County, Nigeria, left 11 Christians dead, including a pregnant woman, her husband, and a 10-year-old girl.
A house church pastor was sentenced to five years in prison, according to a magazine covering religious liberty and human rights in China.
Between Wednesday night and Thursday morning, the Israeli Air Force carried out widespread strikes across Syria, targeting military bases and facilities from the Assad regime era — a move widely seen as a warning to Turkey.
The secretary general of the NATO military alliance on Thursday mourned four American soldiers who were killed during a military exercise in Lithuania.
President Donald Trump and some Republicans were quick to shrug off stock losses Thursday as the market responds to a jolt from Trump’s reciprocal tariffs.
Roughly $1.7 trillion was erased from the S&P 500 Index of the 500 most influential companies at the start of trading at the New York Stock Exchange Thursday amid worries that President Donald J. Trump’s sweeping new round of tariffs could plunge the economy, and much of the world, into a recession.