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Kremlin: Phone calls between Trump, Putin will stay classified

By Nicholas Sakelaris
U.S. President Donald Trump speaks on the phone with Russian President Vladimir Putin in the Oval Office on January 28, 2017. File Photo by Pete Marovich/UPI
U.S. President Donald Trump speaks on the phone with Russian President Vladimir Putin in the Oval Office on January 28, 2017. File Photo by Pete Marovich/UPI | License Photo

Sept. 27 (UPI) -- On the heels of a major political brouhaha in the United States over President Donald Trump's controversial phone call with the leader of Ukraine, the Kremlin said Friday it will keep similar calls between Trump and President Vladimir Putin secret.

The two leaders have spoken by phone multiple times since Trump took office, but Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters Friday the contents of those calls will remain classified. He made the remarks after reporters asked if the conversations will be made public.

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"[Publicizing the calls] is unusual practice," Peskov said. "As a rule, such talks between heads of state are classified or highly classified. This is standard practice worldwide, and usually the talks are not published, of course."

Trump has been involved in a growing scandal involving a July phone call between he and Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky, during which he pressed Zelensky to investigate the son of 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, who formerly worked for a Ukrainian gas company.

The call, reported by a U.S. intelligence official in a whistle-blower report, is now at the center of an impeachment investigation in the U.S. House. The whistle-blower complaint was released to the public Thursday.

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Peskov said the difference is, the decision to release the Trump-Zelensky call came by "mutual agreement" -- and added that no one has yet submitted a request for any transcript between Trump and Putin.

"We would like to hope that in our bilateral relations, which have enough quite serious problems already, it won't come to those situations," he said.

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