Putin signals agreement with Trump to end war in Ukraine

Russian leader declares readiness to negotiate with Trump to end the war in Ukraine, but rules out immediate dialogue with Ukrainian authorities

Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday (19) that he was ready to reach an agreement on Ukraine in possible negotiations with US President-elect Donald Trump on ending the war and was unable to initiate conversations with the Ukrainian authorities.

Trump, a self-proclaimed master of brokering deals and author of the 1987 book “Trump: The Art of the Deal,” has promised to quickly end the conflict but has not yet given details on how he might do so.

Putin, answering questions on state TV during his annual question-and-answer session with the Russians, told a reporter from a U.S. news channel that he was ready to meet Trump, with whom he said he had not spoken in years.

Asked what he could offer Trump, Putin rejected the claim that Russia was in a weak position, saying Russia has become much stronger since he ordered the deployment of troops to Ukraine in 2022.

“We have always said that we are ready for negotiations and compromises,” Putin said, after saying that Russian forces, advancing along the entire front, were moving toward achieving their main objectives in Ukraine.

“Soon, those Ukrainians who want to fight will run out, in my opinion, soon there will be no one left who wants to fight. We are ready, but the other side needs to be ready for negotiations and compromises.”

Reuters reported last month that Putin was open to discussing a ceasefire deal in Ukraine with Trump, but ruled out making major territorial concessions and insisted that Kiev abandon its ambitions to join NATO.

Putin said on Thursday that Russia was in no position to start negotiations with Ukraine and was ready to negotiate with anyone, including President Volodymyr Zelenskiy.

But he said any deal could only be signed with Ukraine’s legitimate authorities, which for now the Kremlin considered to be just the Ukrainian parliament.

Zelenskiy, whose term was due to expire earlier this year but was extended due to martial law, would need to be re-elected for Moscow to consider him a legitimate signatory to any agreement to ensure it was legally sound, Putin said.

Putin dismissed the idea of ​​agreeing to a temporary truce with Kiev, saying only a lasting peace deal with Ukraine would suffice.

Any negotiations must take as a starting point a preliminary agreement reached between Russian and Ukrainian negotiators in the first weeks of the war, in negotiations in Istanbul, which was never implemented, he added.

Some Ukrainian politicians consider this draft agreement akin to a capitulation that would neutralize Ukraine’s military and political ambitions.

GUERRA

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 left tens of thousands dead, millions homeless and triggered the biggest crisis in relations between Moscow and the West since the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962.

Russia, which describes the conflict as a special defensive military operation designed to stop NATO’s dangerous eastward expansion, controls about a fifth of Ukraine and has seized several thousand square kilometers of territory this year.

Determined to incorporate four Ukrainian regions into Russia, Moscow’s forces have seized village after village in the east and are now threatening strategically important cities such as Pokrovsk, a major road and rail hub.

Putin said the fight was complex, so it was “difficult and useless to guess what awaited us… (but) we are moving forward, as you said, towards the solution of our main tasks, which we outlined at the beginning of the special military operation.”

When discussing the continued presence of Ukrainian forces in Russia’s Kursk region, Putin said Kiev’s troops would be forced to leave, but declined to say exactly when that would happen.

The war transformed the Russian economy and Putin said it was showing signs of overheating, which was fueling worryingly high inflation. But he said growth was higher than many other economies, such as Britain.

Asked if he would do anything differently, he said he should have sent troops to Ukraine before 2022 and that Russia should be better prepared for conflict.

Asked by a BBC reporter whether he had taken care of Russia, something Boris Yeltsin had asked him to do before handing over the presidency in late 1999, Putin said yes.

“We have stepped back from the brink,” Putin said.

“I did everything to ensure that Russia is an independent and sovereign power, capable of making decisions in its own interests.”

Russia, Putin said, had made proposals to Syria’s new rulers about Russian military bases in the country, and most people Moscow spoke to about the matter were in favor of them remaining.

Russia would need to think about whether the bases should remain or not, he added, but rumors about the death of Russian influence in the Middle East were exaggerated.

Putin praised what he said was the invincibility of the “Oreshnik” hypersonic missile, which Russia has already tested at a Ukrainian military factory, saying he was ready to organize another launch in Ukraine and see if Western air defense systems could shoot it down. .

In Brussels, Zelenskiy addressed Putin’s missile suggestion during a press conference at a European Council meeting, commenting on Putin: “Do you think he is a sensible person?”

With information from Reuters*