Keystone-SDA
Russian President Vladimir Putin said he was “ready” on Friday to negotiations on the conflict in Ukraine with his American counterpart Donald Trump, even if neither Moscow nor Washington has advanced calendar or agenda for this long -awaited discussion.
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January 24, 2025 – 17:34
(Keystone-ATS) kyiv for his part rejected any discussion on Ukraine “without Ukraine”.
Moscow, kyiv and their allies watch for the unpredictable tenant of the White House on the Ukrainian conflict, to which he has repeatedly claimed to end without ever explaining his intentions.
A conversation between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin, discussed for a long time but not yet materialized, is perceived as an important step. For the past week, both the Kremlin and the White House have been wanting to want this dialogue.
The American president “said he was ready to work together,” Vladimir Putin satisfied on Friday during an interview on state television.
“We have always said, and I want to emphasize it again, that we are ready for these negotiations on Ukrainian issues,” he added.
“As soon as possible, even immediately”
Earlier, spokesperson for the Russian presidency Dmitri Peskov had said he was waiting for Washington’s “signals” on the subject.
It has not given any indication as to the calendar or the nature of these signals. President Trump said Thursday that he was ready to meet Vladimir Putin “as soon as possible” or even “immediately”.
Denouncing “a ridiculous war”, he assured that the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky was “ready to negotiate an agreement”.
Mr. Trump’s positions are difficult to identify at this stage. His country is Ukraine’s first military support and he criticized this aid several times, but he also recently threatened Moscow with more sanctions for lack of agreement with kyiv.
Vladimir Putin assured him that the “crisis in Ukraine” of 2022, the year of the beginning of the conflict, could have been avoided if Donald Trump “had been president, if they had not stolen the victory in 2020”.
He thus resumed his account of the unfounded statements of the American president on alleged electoral fraud in 2020.
-Not without Ukraine
In kyiv, the head of the Ukrainian presidential administration Andriï Iermak denounced the fact that the Russian president wanted to “negotiate the fate of Europe without Europe” and “speak of Ukraine without Ukraine”.
Ukraine also fears to be pushed to the negotiating table in an unfavorable position, because it is struggling on the front, and of being forced to yield its territories occupied by Russia.
Volodymyr Zelensky, long hostile to any negotiation with Moscow, has, in recent times, mentioned this possibility but has accompanied it solid security guarantees from the Westerners.
The Kremlin, in substance, asks the surrender of Ukraine, which it renounces to join NATO and that Russia keeps the Ukrainian territories whose annexation it has claimed. Unacceptable conditions for kyiv.
Oil and strikes
Thursday, during a speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Donald Trump called to reach Russia at the portfolio by lowering oil prices.
If these were lower “the war in Ukraine would be finished immediately,” he said.
Vladimir Putin, praising the “pragmatic” and “intelligent” character of Donald Trump, said that the latter would not make such a decision which would also prejudice “the American economy”.
Dmitri Peskov replied on Friday that the conflict in Ukraine “does not depend on the prices of oil”, but “follows from a threat to Russian national security”.
Donald Trump’s return to the White House occurs at a time when Russia is undoubtedly the advantage on the front.
The Russian Defense Ministry announced on Friday the capture of Tymofïvka, a small village in the Donetsk region (East).
Hundreds of kilometers from the front, Russian strikes killed three people in the kyiv region, according to a new assessment announced on Friday by the Ukrainian authorities.
For its part, the Russian Ministry of Defense said on Friday that it had shot down during the night 120 Ukrainian drones above 12 of its regions, including Moscow, one of the most important attacks of this type against its territory since the beginning of the conflict.
The Ukrainian army has claimed a nocturnal drone shot on a refinery in the Riazan region south of Moscow, as well as a microcomomposing factory used for the production of weapons in that of Britansk in the southwest of the Russian Capital .
