Donald Trump told Vladimir Putin that ending the war in Ukraine would open large-scale prospects for restoring US-Russian trade, the Kremlin said after an hour-long call on September 8.

"Donald Trump clearly conveyed the idea that an early end to the conflict would be desirable," Yuri Ushakov, the Russian president's foreign policy aide, told reporters in a readout published by the Kremlin at 17:30 Moscow time. Trump pitched it, Ushakov said, as a way to immediately open impressive and large-scale prospects for the full restoration of relations between the two countries, and dwelt on the enormous benefits of developing trade and economic ties. "Donald Trump is interested in achieving a breakthrough during his presidency," Ushakov said.

The commercial framing is the substance of it. Moscow has spent the past month putting a package of energy, Arctic, minerals and infrastructure deals in front of Washington, carried by Kirill Dmitriev through the channel to Steve Witkoff, and has floated everything from the return of American oil majors to a restoration of dollar clearing. On the Kremlin's account of this call, the same offer is now being made in the other direction, by the US president, and the price attached to it is an end to the war.

Ushakov said Putin supported that approach in the context of building a constructive partnership between the two great powers, and again praised US mediation efforts and Trump's personal role. The call followed the visits by Witkoff and Jared Kushner to Moscow on September 5 and Kyiv the following day, whose results Ushakov said both presidents assessed positively. Work through that channel, and through some others, would continue.

What was not agreed is the thing that has blocked every previous round. Putin continues to demand the complete withdrawal of Ukrainian troops from the unoccupied parts of Donetsk region as a condition for peace, which Kyiv rejects. Ushakov said Putin gave Trump an objective and thorough analysis of the battlefield situation and his view of the prospects for advances, and that the call set out specific measures the US could take to bring the fighting to an end more quickly. He did not say what they were.

"You understand yourselves that it was confidential, so I will hardly be able to share many important details and nuances," Ushakov said, The Moscow Times reported.

On Europe, Ushakov said it was stressed that Russia has no aggressive plans towards the European Union whatsoever, and that talk of a Russian threat is being used as a pretext for increasing support for Ukraine and raising Western European military spending. The two leaders agreed to stay in contact and to speak again quickly if necessary, and Ushakov said the call ended on a positive note.

The White House did not immediately confirm the call and US officials had not commented on its substance, Meduza reported. Every word of the account above is therefore the Kremlin's.

It was also the second consecutive day on which the diplomacy and the war ran in opposite directions. Russia held off striking Kyiv for three days while the American envoys were in the country and hit the capital with ballistic and cruise missiles within hours of their departure on the night of September 7, killing two people and burning warehouses in four districts.