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Kremlin, Trump Deny Report of ex-US President’s Phone Calls with Putin

Russian President Vladimir Putin delivers a speech at a summit of leaders of nations, which are members of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), at the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia October 8, 2024. Sputnik/Kristina Kormilitsyna/Pool via REUTERS
Russian President Vladimir Putin delivers a speech at a summit of leaders of nations, which are members of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), at the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia October 8, 2024. Sputnik/Kristina Kormilitsyna/Pool via REUTERS
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Kremlin, Trump Deny Report of ex-US President’s Phone Calls with Putin

Russian President Vladimir Putin delivers a speech at a summit of leaders of nations, which are members of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), at the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia October 8, 2024. Sputnik/Kristina Kormilitsyna/Pool via REUTERS
Russian President Vladimir Putin delivers a speech at a summit of leaders of nations, which are members of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), at the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia October 8, 2024. Sputnik/Kristina Kormilitsyna/Pool via REUTERS

The Kremlin on Wednesday denied a Bob Woodward's reporting that former US President Donald Trump spoke to Russian President Vladimir Putin as many as seven times since leaving office, the RBC daily reported.

When asked by RBC if Putin and Trump had spoken on the phone, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said: "No, that's not true."

Woodward’s revelations were made in the famed Watergate reporter's latest book, “War."

Trump also denied the reporting in an interview with ABC News' Jonathan Karl. “He’s a storyteller. A bad one. And he’s lost his marbles,” Trump said of Woodward.

Trump had previously spoken to Woodward for the journalist's 2021 book, “Rage.” Trump later sued over it, claiming Woodward never had permission to publicly release recordings of their interviews for the book. The publisher and Woodward denied his allegations.

Here is more from the new book:
Trump has had multiple calls with Putin since his White House term ended. Woodward reports that Trump asked an aide to leave his office at his Florida resort, Mar-a-Lago, so that the former president could have a private call with Putin in early 2024. The aide, whom Woodward doesn’t name, said there have been multiple calls between Trump and Putin since Trump left office, perhaps as many as seven, according to the book, though it does not detail what they discussed.
Trump senior adviser and longtime aide Jason Miller told Woodward that he had not heard Trump was having calls with Putin and said, “I'd push back on that.” But Miller also said, according to the book, “I’m sure they’d know how to get in touch with each other."
Steven Cheung, Trump’s communications director, said none of the stories in Woodward’s books are true. In a statement on Tuesday, he called them “the work of a truly demented and deranged man who suffers from a debilitating case of Trump Derangement Syndrome.”

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Large Earthquake Hits Battered Vanuatu

A vehicle is trapped beneath a collapsed building following a strong earthquake in Port Vila, Vanuatu, December 17, 2024, in this screengrab taken from a social media video. Jeremy Ellison/via Reuters
A vehicle is trapped beneath a collapsed building following a strong earthquake in Port Vila, Vanuatu, December 17, 2024, in this screengrab taken from a social media video. Jeremy Ellison/via Reuters
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Large Earthquake Hits Battered Vanuatu

A vehicle is trapped beneath a collapsed building following a strong earthquake in Port Vila, Vanuatu, December 17, 2024, in this screengrab taken from a social media video. Jeremy Ellison/via Reuters
A vehicle is trapped beneath a collapsed building following a strong earthquake in Port Vila, Vanuatu, December 17, 2024, in this screengrab taken from a social media video. Jeremy Ellison/via Reuters

A magnitude-6.1 earthquake rattled buildings on Vanuatu's main island early Sunday but did not appear to have caused major damage, five days after a more powerful quake wreaked havoc and killed 12 people.

The nation's most populous island, Efate, is still reeling from the deadly 7.3-magnitude temblor on Tuesday, which toppled concrete buildings and set off landslides in and around the capital of Port Vila.

The latest quake occurred at a depth of 40 kilometers (25 miles) and was located some 30 kilometers west of the capital, which has been shaken by a string of aftershocks.

No tsunami alerts were triggered when the temblor struck at 2:30 am Sunday (1530 GMT Saturday).

Port Vila businessman Michael Thompson told AFP the quake woke his family.

"It gave a better bit of a shake and the windows rattled a little bit, it would have caused houses to rattle," he said.

"But you know, no movement other than a few inches either way, really. Whereas the main quake, you would have had like a meter and a half movement of the property very, very rapidly and suddenly.

"I'd describe this one as one of the bigger aftershocks, and we've had a fair few of them now."

Thompson said there was no sign of further damage in his immediate vicinity.

The death toll remained at 12, according to government figures relayed late Saturday by the United Nations' humanitarian affairs office.

It said 210 injuries had been registered while 1,698 people have been temporarily displaced, citing Vanuatu disaster management officials.

Mobile networks remained knocked out, making outside contact with Vanuatu difficult and complicating aid efforts.

In addition to disrupting communications, the first quake damaged water supplies and halted operations at the capital's main shipping port.

The South Pacific nation declared a seven-day state of emergency and a night curfew following the first quake.

It announced Saturday it would lift a suspension on commercial flights in an effort to restart its vital tourism industry.

The first were scheduled to arrive on Sunday.

Rescuers Friday said they had expanded their search for trapped survivors to "numerous places of collapse" beyond the capital.

- Still searching -

Australia and New Zealand this week dispatched more than 100 personnel, along with rescue gear, dogs and aid supplies, to help hunt for trapped survivors and make emergency repairs.

There were "several major collapse sites where buildings are fully pancaked", Australia's rescue team leader Douglas May said in a video update on Friday.

"We're now starting to spread out to see whether there's further people trapped and further damage. And we've found numerous places of collapse east and west out of the city."

Thompson said power had been restored to his home on Saturday but said many others were still waiting.

"We're hearing a lot of the major businesses are still down, supermarkets are trying to open back up," he said.

"So this is very different to what's happened with disasters here in the past.

"Cyclones destroy everything outside, whereas earthquakes really destroy a lot of infrastructure inside the buildings."

Vanuatu, an archipelago of some 320,000 inhabitants, sits in the Pacific's quake-prone Ring of Fire.

Tourism accounts for about a third of the country's economy, according to the Australia-Pacific Islands Business Council.