Why couldn’t Vladimir Putin make an offer that Donald Trump wouldn’t reject? During a phone call with Trump this week, Putin proposed that Russia take possession of Iran’s enriched uranium as part of a broader deal tied to ending the ongoing war, taking advantage of changing dynamics in the Middle East.According to a scoop from Axios, Trump rejected the offer.The situation in the Middle East worsened after Donald Trump launched a brutal mission against the Tehran regime led by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was later killed. Long frustrated by Iran’s nuclear ambitions, the US-Israeli military strike targeted key nuclear and military sites, leaving Iran weakened and angry and triggering a wave of retaliatory attacks across the Gulf region.Securing Iran’s 450 kilograms of 60%-enriched uranium, which can be converted into weapons-grade material in a matter of weeks and is enough for more than 10 nuclear bombs, remains one of the key objectives for the United States and Israel in the ongoing conflict.In theory, a proposal from Russian President Vladimir Putin could help remove Iran’s nuclear stockpile without the need for American or Israeli troops on the ground. The idea involves Russia taking possession of enriched uranium.Russia already has advanced nuclear capabilities and previously stored Iran’s low-enriched uranium under the 2015 nuclear deal, making it one of the few countries with the technical capacity to handle such material.Putin reportedly raised several ideas about ending the war between the United States and Iran during a phone call with US President Donald Trump on Monday. The uranium custody proposal was one of the suggestions.“This is not the first time this has been offered. It has not been accepted. The US position is that we need to secure the uranium,” a US official told Axios.Russia made similar proposals during US-Iran nuclear talks last May, before the United States and Israel attacked Iran’s nuclear facilities in June, and again in the weeks before the current war.During the last round of talks before the conflict began, Iran rejected the idea of transferring uranium abroad. Instead, Tehran proposed to dilute the enriched uranium within its own facilities under the supervision of the International Atomic Energy Agency.It is not clear whether Iran would now be willing to accept such a proposal.The United States official said, “The President talks to everybody – Xi, Putin, the Europeans, and he is always ready to make a deal. But it has to be a good deal. The President doesn’t make bad deals.”Meanwhile, according to an earlier Axios report, the United States and Israel have also discussed the possibility of sending special forces to Iran in the later stages of the war to secure the nuclear stockpile.US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said at a press conference on Friday that the United States has “several options” for taking control of Iran’s highly enriched uranium.Hegseth said one possible option would be for Iran to voluntarily surrender the stockpiles, a move the United States “would welcome.”He said, “They were not willing to do that in negotiations. I would never tell this group or the world what we are willing to do or how far we are willing to go – but we certainly have options.”However, Trump suggested that securing enriched uranium is not currently a top priority. “We’re not focused on that, but at some point we may be,” he said.The US president also acknowledged for the first time that Russia could assist Iran during the conflict, following reports that Moscow had provided intelligence that could help target US forces.“I think (Putin) might be helping them a little bit, yes. And he probably thinks we’re helping Ukraine, right?” Trump said in the Fox interview.“So he says this, and China will say the same thing. It’s like, hey, they do this and we do this, in all fairness.”