In the middle of the presidential campaign, Donald Trump declared that he wanted to end the war in Ukraine “in 24 hours”. Now, shortly before his inauguration, the President-elect has declared that he wants to organize a meeting with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin.
Vladimir Putin is “open to contact” with Donald Trump without preconditions, the Kremlin announced this Friday, January 10, welcoming the desire of the American president-elect to “solve problems through dialogue”.
The Russian President “has repeatedly stated that he is open to contact with international leaders, including the President of the United States, including Donald Trump”Dmitri Peskov, its spokesperson, told the press.
“No conditions are required, what is needed is a mutual desire and political will to resolve problems through dialogue”continued Mr. Peskov, ascribing precisely this quality to the American president-elect.
Trump claims to be preparing a meeting with Putin
“Donald Trump demonstrates his desire to resolve problems through dialogue. We welcome this. We start from a mutual desire to meet,” he continued, while specifying that there was currently no concrete plan for a meeting between the two men.
Donald Trump, who is due to take office on January 20, said Thursday January 9 that he was preparing a meeting with Vladimir Putin to “to end it” with the conflict in Ukraine. The Republican billionaire promised during his election campaign to put an end to “in twenty-four hours” to the conflict in Ukraine and has already called for a “immediate ceasefire” and to talks.
Vladimir Putin, for his part, is still calling for Ukraine to surrender, for it to renounce joining NATO and for Russia to keep the Ukrainian territories for which it has claimed annexation.
kyiv prepares for talks
The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry, for its part, said on Friday “see nothing new” in Trump’s remarks about a possible meeting with Putin.
“All of us in Ukraine want to end the war fairly for Ukraine and we see that President Trump is also committed to ending the war,” commented the spokesperson for this ministry, Georgiy Tykhy, quoted by the Interfax-Ukraine news agency. According to him, kyiv is preparing for discussions with American officials “immediately” after Donald Trump takes office in ten days, including with Ukrainian head of state Volodymyr Zelensky.
