Fred Fleitz told Newsmax on Wednesday that he’s “glad” President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin held a phone call Wednesday to discuss the recent attacks by Ukraine against Russia, which he said “may not have achieved anything right now.”
Ukraine on Sunday launched a surprise drone attack on Russian airfields across the country that destroyed dozens of aircraft, followed by an underwater attack on the bridge connecting Russia to Crimea, the territory seized from Ukraine by Russia in 2014.
Trump announced on social media on Wednesday that he spoke to Putin for more than an hour on the phone, saying, “It was a good conversation, but not a conversation that will lead to immediate Peace.”
Fleitz, former chief of staff to the White House National Security Council in the first Trump administration, told “American Agenda” that he’s “glad when Russian and American presidents are talking,” noting that former President Joe Biden “didn’t speak to Putin since the war broke out in February of 2022.”
He added, “If there’s going to be peace, we have to have dialog. We have to have Ukrainians and Russians talking, the American and Russian leaders talking. I’m disappointed that Putin apparently didn’t offer anything to get us towards peace, but this may take time and I’m sure Trump’s trying to find a way not to resort to sanctions.”
Fleitz said, “Whenever they’re talking, I think it’s a good sign.”
He later said that the attacks “may not have achieved anything right now, but I do think that resolving conflicts like this takes time and our relationship with Russia was in a very bad way after the Biden administration.”
Fleitz added that he’s “concerned what our government, especially the CIA, knew about” the attack before it took place.
He said, “I’m glad that Putin didn’t appear to be blaming the U.S., but I think there has to be an investigation, congressional hearings, to find out what the U.S. government knew in advance and did our intelligence analysts tell President Trump what they knew about it in advance?”
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