During the roughly hour-long call, Moscow’s ruler stated that his country “will not back down” from the “goals” of its invasion, according to a Kremlin readout.

Putin also emphasized the need to resolve the situation around Iran and in the broader Middle East “exclusively by political and diplomatic means,” the Kremlin aid said.

A week ago today, Trump had an hourlong phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin. And after that, everything changed. The end of the affair: The U.S. president — who in January came into office claiming he could strike a peace deal with Putin on Day One;