Russia hopes White House won't publish Putin's calls with Trump

After the publication of Ukrainian President's Volodymyr Zelensky's phone call with President Trump, Russia would very much not like to go next.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, when asked if Moscow is concerned the U.S. might publish transcripts of calls between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin, said Friday, "we would like to hope that it wouldn't come to that in our relations, which are already troubled by a lot of problems," ABC News reports.

A rough transcript of the conversation between Zelensky and Trump was made public earlier this week after it was the subject of a whistleblower complaint; it showed Trump asking Zelensky to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden's son. Some within the administration voiced concerns about the precedent it would set to release such conversations with foreign leaders, including Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

Peskov on Friday described the release of the call with Zelensky as "quite unusual."

What a transcript of a conversation between Trump and Putin might be like is anyone's guess, but The Washington Post reports Trump allies upon reading his conversation with Zelensky observed it was actually "'one of his better' phone calls with foreign leaders."