The White House was under growing pressure on Thursday to provide a full account of Donald Trump’s private talks earlier this week with Vladimir Putin, as Russian officials spoke of “important verbal agreements” made.
As some Democrats went as far as to push for the US translator in the room during Monday’s summit in Helsinki to give an account to Congress, Putin on Thursday hailed the meeting as a “success”.
In the aftermath of the outcry from Democrats and some Republicans around Trump’s remarks, in which he sided with Putin rather than US intelligence over Russian interference in US elections, attention shifted to what was said in the private talks.
This was heightened after comments on Wednesday by Russia’s ambassador to the US, Anatoly Antonov, who told reporters in Moscow the two leaders had reached “important verbal agreements”, including preservation of the New Start and INF arms control agreements.
