President-elect Donald Trump said late Thursday that a meeting is being arranged with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, a summit that would be eyed anxiously by Ukraine and its other Western allies.
“President Putin wants to meet” and “we are setting it up,” Trump told a news briefing at his Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida. “We have to get that war over with. That’s a bloody mess.”
Trump has previously suggested he would seek to end Russia’s war in Ukraine, now approaching the three-year mark, within 24 hours of assuming office.
Russia says it is open to to dialogue and diplomacy — although critics say that in reality its proposals amount to little more than a Ukrainian surrender.
“President Putin has repeatedly stated his openness to contacts with international leaders, including the U.S. president, including with Donald Trump,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Friday. “No conditions are required for this, what is required is a mutual desire and political will to conduct a dialogue.”
Peskov said Trump’s overtures were “welcome” but added there were “no specifics” on dates. “After Mr. Trump assumes office, there will be some developments.”
A military-themed mural decorates the wall of a residential building in the town of Petushki, Russia on Friday.
Any settlement would likely be impossible without Ukraine agreeing to cede huge swathes of territory to Moscow.
Many in Europe worry Putin could then turn his ambitions to other former Soviet countries, particularly given Trump’s previous record of undermining the NATO alliance under which these Westernized states have been historically protected.
“We want peace, but peace through strength,” NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte said in a speech last month.
Kyiv is currently suffering battlefield setbacks as Russian troops steadily advance through the frozen fields of its eastern heartlands, with Moscow claiming to have captured the front-line town of Kurakhove this week.
Kyiv has also launched its own new offensive in Russia’s Kursk region, possibly to strengthen its hand in future talks.
Russian servicemen fire rockets towards Ukrainian positions near Lyman on Dec. 25.
Trump has more recently relaxed his 24-hour ambitions, saying earlier this week that he hoped to have the conflict solved within “six months.” Keith Kellogg, his appointee for special envoy in the war, separately set the goal of “100 days.”
Still, this is a far remove the strategy of President Joe Biden, who has met Putin only once while in office, at a June 2021 summit in Geneva, otherwise describing him as “a killer” and a “dictator.”
Biden has overseen some $170 billion in aid for Ukraine, telling his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, this summer that “we will be with Ukraine until they prevail in this war.”
Zelenskyy says he is grateful for this support, but he and other officials have complained that some of the military aid has been too slow and too little. Trump has suggested it is too much.
Zelenskyy acknowledged Thursday that a “new chapter” was about to begin under Trump, and urged Western allies “not to drop the ball” on supporting Ukraine as a bulwark against Moscow.
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
