Russian President Vladimir Putin is “ready” to speak to Donald Trump, the Kremlin said on Friday the day after an immediate meeting, but neither Moscow nor Washington advanced real calendar for this discussion as much expected.
Moscow, kyiv and their allies watch for the position that the unpredictable tenant of the White House will adopt on the Ukrainian conflict, to which he has repeatedly claimed to want 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.
“Putin is ready. We expect signals. Everyone is ready, “spokesman for the Russian presidency Dmitri Peskov told journalists on Friday.
“It is difficult to read in the coffee grounds here,” said Peskov, sending the ball back to the White House.
He did not give any indication as to the calendar or the nature of these expected signals, when President Trump said Thursday that he was ready to an immediate meeting with Vladimir Putin.
“I think, from what I hear, that Putin wants to meet me, we will meet as soon as possible. I would meet it immediately, “he said to journalists in the oval office.
“Every day we do not meet, soldiers are killed on the battlefield,” said Donald Trump, denouncing “a ridiculous war”.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky “is ready to negotiate an agreement, they would like to stop,” he added.
Mr. Trump’s positions are difficult to identify. 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.
Ukraine fears to be pushed to the negotiating table in an unfavorable position, because it is struggling on the front, and of being forced to sell its territories occupied by Russia.
Volodymyr Zelensky, long hostile to any negotiation with Moscow, has, lately, mentioned this possibility on several occasions. But he matches it solid security guarantees from Westerners.
The Kremlin asks for the surrender of Ukraine, which it renounces to join NATO and that Russia keeps the Ukrainian territories of which it claimed the annexation. Conditions that kyiv judges unacceptable.
-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.
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”.
The Kremlin, which agitated the nuclear threat several times since the start of the conflict in Ukraine, also urged the United States on Friday to initiate nuclear disarmament negotiations “as soon as possible”.
Donald Trump’s return to the White House occurs at a time when Russia is undoubtedly the advantage on the front.
The Russian Ministry of Defense, which reports almost every day of the progress of its troops, announced on Friday the capture of Tymofïvka, a small village in the Donetsk region.
Hundreds of kilometers from the fighting, Russian strikes left three people dead in the kyiv region, according to a new assessment announced on Friday by the Ukrainian authorities.
Volodymyr Zelensky denounced what he perceives as the laxity of his allies vis-à-vis deliveries to Russia for drones and missile components, which continue despite Western sanctions.
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.
Russian media have reported damage in several regions.
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 .
