Russian President Vladimir Putin said Friday he was “ready” for negotiations on the conflict in Ukraine with his American counterpart Donald Trump, even if neither Moscow nor Washington has put forward a timetable or agenda for this long-awaited discussion. .
kyiv, for its part, rejected any discussion on Ukraine “without Ukraine”.
Moscow, kyiv and their allies are watching for the position that the unpredictable tenant of the White House will adopt on the Ukrainian conflict, 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 seen as an important step. For a week, both the Kremlin and the White House have said they want this dialogue.
The American president “said he was ready to work together,” Vladimir Putin said Friday in 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.
Earlier, Russian presidential spokesperson Dmitri Peskov said he was waiting for “signals” from Washington on the subject.
He gave no indication as to the timing or 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 Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was “ready to negotiate an agreement”.
Mr. Trump’s positions are difficult to define at this stage. His country is Ukraine’s primary military supporter and he has criticized this aid several times, but he also recently threatened Moscow with more sanctions for failure to reach an agreement with kyiv.
Vladimir Putin assured him that the “crisis in Ukraine” of 2022, the year the conflict began, could have been avoided if Donald Trump “had been president, if they had not stolen his victory in 2020”.
He thus took up the American president’s unfounded assertions about 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 “talk about Ukraine without Ukraine”.
| © AFP US President Donald Trump speaks to the media in the Oval Office of the White House, January 23, 2025 in Washington - |
Ukraine also fears being pushed to the negotiating table in an unfavorable position, because it is struggling at the front, and of being forced to cede its territories occupied by Russia.
Volodymyr Zelensky, long hostile to any negotiations with Moscow, has recently raised this possibility but has combined it with solid security guarantees from the West.
The Kremlin, for its part, is essentially demanding the surrender of Ukraine, that it renounces joining NATO and that Russia keeps the Ukrainian territories for which it has claimed annexation. Unacceptable conditions for kyiv.
Oil and mints
Thursday, during a speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Donald Trump called for hitting Russia in the wallet by lowering oil prices.
If these were lower “the war in Ukraine would be over immediately”, he estimated.
Vladimir Putin, praising the “pragmatic” and “intelligent” character of Donald Trump, estimated that the latter would not take such a decision which would also harm “the American economy”.
Dmitry Peskov replied on Friday that the conflict in Ukraine “does not depend on oil prices”, but “arises from a threat to Russian national security”.
Donald Trump’s return to the White House occurs at a time when Russia undoubtedly has the advantage on the front.
| © Ukrainian emergency services/AFP Photo provided by Ukrainian emergency services, January 24, 2025, of rescuers at the site of a Russian missile strike in the kyiv region |
The Russian Defense Ministry announced on Friday the capture of Tymofiivka, a small village in the Donetsk region (east).
Hundreds of kilometers from the front, Russian strikes left three people dead in the kyiv region, according to a new report announced Friday by the Ukrainian authorities.
For its part, the Russian Defense Ministry said Friday that it had shot down 120 Ukrainian drones overnight over 12 of its regions, including Moscow, one of the largest attacks of this type against its territory since the start of the conflict.
The Ukrainian army claimed responsibility for a nighttime drone strike on a refinery in the Ryazan region south of Moscow, as well as a microcomponent factory used for weapons production in the Bryansk region southwest of the Russian capital. .
