Read: Melania Trump’s Letter to Putin

Melania Trump sent a private letter to Vladimir Putin in which she appeared to urge him to end the war to protect children.

The note, which was hand delivered to the Russian leader by Donald Trump during their Alaska summit, tells Putin “it is time” to act.

The letter does not explicitly mention Ukraine or the war, but appears to be a thinly veiled plea for him to end the war with “a stroke of the pen” to protect younger generations.

“A simple yet profound concept, Mr. Putin, as I am sure you agree, is that each generation’s descendants begin their lives with a purity—an innocence which stands above geography, government, and ideology”, Mrs Trump wrote, according to Fox News.

The first lady added: “Yet in today’s world, some children are forced to carry a quiet laughter, untouched by the darkness around them—a silent defiance against the forces that can potentially claim their future.”

“Mr. Putin, you can single-handedly restore their melodic laughter,” the first lady wrote. “In protecting the innocence of these children, you will do more than serve Russia alone—you serve humanity itself.

“Such a bold idea transcends all human division, and you, Mr. Putin, are fit to implement this vision with a stroke of the pen today,” she wrote, adding: “It is time.”

The letter marks the latest intervention from the first lady, who Mr Trump said earlier this year had been influential in pushing him to secure peace in Ukraine.

“My conversations with him [Putin] are always very pleasant. I say, isn’t that a very lovely conversation? And then the missiles go off that night,” Mr Trump said at the White House last month.

“I go home, I tell the first lady: ‘I spoke with Vladimir today. We had a wonderful conversation’. She said: ‘Really? Another city was just hit’.”

The Slovenian-born first lady, who grew up in the former Yugoslavia, has been supportive of Ukraine since Putin launched his invasion in 2022.

Shortly after the war started, she called on her social media followers to donate to the Red Cross and said it was “heartbreaking and horrific to see innocent people suffering”.

Ukrainians and some US Republicans have praised her for seemingly influencing Mr Trump to push Putin for peace.

The carefully worded note does not mention Ukraine or the abduction of Ukrainian children.

It is not clear exactly how many children are still missing but a report from the Institute for the Study of War, a US-based think tank, estimates nearly 19,500 children had been deported to Russia.

Kyiv has called the abductions a war crime and genocide under a definition by the United Nations.

Moscow said previously it had been “protecting” children from a war zone.

In 2023, the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Putin, accusing him of war crimes, including abducting Ukrainian children.