moscow<u+2014>russian president vladimir putin spoke by phone on monday with u.s. president-elect donald trump, as the transition to a new administration began in washington, the kremlin and the office of the president-elect said. in a statement released monday evening, the kremlin said mr. putin congratulated mr. trump on his election victory and <u+201c>noted the willingness to build collaborative dialogue with the new administration on the principles of equality, mutual respect and noninterference.<u+201d> in a statement, the office of the president-elect said the two men <u+201c>discussed a range of issues including the threats and challenges facing the united states and russia, strategic economic issues and the historical u.s.-russia relationship that dates back over 200 years.<u+201d> u.s.-russian relations have been at post-cold war lows following the eruption of the ukraine crisis in 2014 and mr. putin<u+2019>s direct military intervention last year in syria. during the u.s. election campaign, the u.s. intelligence community directly accused the russian government of deliberately trying to interfere in the u.s. democratic process by leaking emails hacked from the democratic national committee. mr. putin has denied his government<u+2019>s involvement in the hacking. during the course of the campaign, mr. trump frequently praised the kremlin leader<u+2014>and even appeared to endorse russian spying, calling on russia to unearth some of democratic rival hillary clinton <u+2019>s missing emails from her time as secretary of state. he also called for improved relations with russia, saying he believed better cooperation with mr. putin would help resolve longstanding issues such as fighting terrorism and extremism in the middle east. in the course of monday<u+2019>s telephone conversation, messrs. trump and putin discussed <u+201c>the current very dissatisfactory state of russian-american relations,<u+201d> the kremlin said, adding that the two men talked about <u+201c>active joint work on their normalization,<u+201d> as well as cooperation on a range of issues. the kremlin statement also said the two men shared their views on combating <u+201c>the common enemy number one<u+2014>international terrorism and extremism.<u+201d> when mr. putin launched an air war last year in support of syrian president bashar al-assad, he cast his alliance with the syrian leader as the world<u+2019>s best chance for combating islamic state and other extremists. that put him at odds with the obama administration, which has supported the ouster of mr. assad and subsequently accused the russians of targeting moderate u.s.-backed rebels. the kremlin statement said the two men discussed resolution of the syrian crisis. the two men agreed to continue to have telephone discussions in the future, the statement added. write to nathan hodge at nathan.hodge@wsj.com
donald trump, vladimir putin speak by phone  - wsj
nathan hodge