The Kremlin denied Monday that President-elect Donald Trump spoke with Russian leader Vladimir Putin last week, saying there are no specific plans for the two leaders to communicate yet.

The Washington Post reported Sunday that the men spoke on Thursday, with Trump joining the call from his resort in Florida. According to five people familiar with the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive matter, Trump advised the Russian president not to escalate the war in Ukraine and reminded him of Washington’s sizable military presence in Europe.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov called the story “completely untrue.”

“This is the most obvious example of the quality of the information that is now published, sometimes even in fairly respected publications. This is completely untrue. This is pure fiction, this is simply false information,” he told the Russian news agency Interfax.

Asked whether Putin had plans for any contacts with Trump, Peskov said, “There are no concrete plans yet.”

The Kremlin denial of the call came amid nervousness in Moscow over whether Trump would stick to his pre-election campaign rhetoric and seek to restore relations with Russia and bring an end to the war in Ukraine.

Abbas Gallyamov, a former speechwriter of Putin’s and political analyst, suggested the Kremlin did not like the phrase about U.S. troops in Europe.

“It looks like Trump is threatening Putin. If Russia now agrees to Trump’s proposal at least partially, it will turn out that he did so under pressure,” said Gallyamov, who lives in Israel after being branded a foreign agent by Russia. “Putin is very concerned with appearances and wants to look like the master of the situation, and not the one who is being threatened.”

Peskov told Russian state TV journalist Pavel Zarubin earlier that Moscow was encouraged by Trump’s campaign talk about seeking peace instead of confrontation with Russia, but he added that Trump was unpredictable and that it was not clear whether he would stick to his statements.

Many in Moscow worry that Trump could be constrained by a strongly anti-Putin U.S. security establishment - a concern Putin also hinted at during a speech at the Valdai forum on Thursday when he said Trump appeared to be “hounded” during his first term and “afraid of making any step to the left or right or saying any word.”

During his presidential campaign, Trump said he could settle the war in Ukraine “in 24 hours,” though he did not offer specifics about how he intended to achieve that. He privately signaled his support for a deal that would allow Russia to retain some captured territory.

In the call The Post reported on, the leaders discussed the goal of peace on the European continent, and Trump expressed an interest in follow-up conversations to discuss “the resolution of Ukraine’s war soon,” one of the people said, and he briefly touched upon the issue of land.

One Moscow businessman said the Kremlin may not want to confirm any such call - even if it was only an informal overture - as it reportedly contained an implicit threat from Trump against Russia escalating further in Ukraine.

“They are either sure that no one will confirm this call, or if there was a demand from Trump saying that escalation was unacceptable and that no one needs this - of course Putin and his apparatus can’t not react to this: They will have to show that we are not afraid and we will continue our agenda to fully take the occupied territories,” he said, referring to the Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions that Putin unilaterally declared Russia was annexing.

But many are uncertain over whether Putin would agree to stop at those borders. “If Putin wants to take more territory, then talks with Trump are senseless,” the businessman added, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issues.

During the Valdai forum, Putin also said Ukraine would have to accept neutrality for any peace talks to succeed. “If Ukraine’s neutrality does not exist, it is hard to imagine any good neighborly relations with Russia,” he said, adding that any cease-fire could not be a temporary arrangement that would merely allow Ukraine to stock up on munitions.

Before last week’s presidential election, the Kremlin said on several occasions that Putin does not plan to call a new U.S. president.

But on Thursday, Putin congratulated Trump on his victory in his first public comment on the U.S. vote, and he praised the president-elect’s courage during the July assassination attempt.

“His behavior at the moment of an attempt on his life left an impression on me. He turned out to be a brave man,” Putin said at the forum following his speech.

“He manifested himself in the very correct way, bravely as a man,” Putin added.

Speaking about future contacts with Trump, Putin said: “I don’t think it’s embarrassing to call him on my part. I’m not doing this because the leaders of Western countries have been calling me almost every week at some point, and then suddenly they stopped.”

“If any of them want to resume contacts, I have always said, and I want to say it again: we have nothing against it,” he added.