President Donald Trump said on Feb. 7 that he has spoken to Russian President Vladimir Putin about ending the Russia–Ukraine war, drawing a response from the Kremlin.
Speaking to the New York Post in an exclusive interview on Air Force One, Trump said that he did speak with the Russian leader about the war, which started in 2022. Asked about how many times he has spoken to Putin in recent days, Trump said, “I’d rather not say.”
However, Trump said he believes that Putin “does care” about the carnage on the battlefield and “wants to see people stop dying.”
“All those dead people. Young, young, beautiful people. They’re like your kids, 2 million of them—and for no reason,“ Trump said, referring to soldiers dying in the war, adding that the conflict ”never would have happened” if he was president in 2022.
Elaborating, but without providing many details, Trump said that he has a plan to end the war, adding that he has a good relationship with Putin.
“I hope it’s fast,“ he said. ”Every day people are dying. This war is so bad in Ukraine. I want to end this damn thing.”
Longtime Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told the TASS state news agency that “many different communications are emerging” between Moscow and Washington, according to a Russian-to-English translation.
“These communications are conducted through different channels,” Peskov replied when asked by TASS to comment directly on Trump’s interview with the Post. “I personally may not know something, be unaware of something. Therefore, in this case, I can neither confirm nor deny it.”
In February 2022, Putin sent thousands of troops, tanks, and other military hardware to Ukraine as part of a “special military operation” for what he said was an attempt to end a possible threat to Russian sovereignty by Ukrainian forces backed by NATO. He also has said that Russia wants to protect Russian speakers living in Ukraine.
However, Ukraine and its Western backers, led by the Biden administration, have said the invasion was an imperial-style land grab and vowed to defeat Russian forces. Moscow controls a chunk of Ukraine about the size of the U.S. state of Virginia and is advancing at the fastest pace since the early days of the 2022 invasion.
Before taking office in January, Trump had said that he wants to quickly end the war, at several points saying he would end it within 24 hours of taking office.
On Feb. 7, Trump said he would probably meet Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy the following week to discuss ending the war. Zelenskyy told Reuters on the same day that he wanted Ukraine to supply the United States with rare earths and other minerals in return for continued financial support in its war effort.
“If we are talking about a deal, then let’s do a deal; we are only for it,” Zelenskyy said. “Let’s develop this together, make money, and most importantly, it’s about the security of the Western world.”
But Zelenskyy cautioned that Trump must meet with him before he meets with Putin on ending the war. The reason, he said, is because meeting with Putin first would “look like a dialogue about Ukraine without Ukraine.”
Reuters contributed to this report.
Pres Trump will do what Brandon couldn’t do… or didn’t want to do since he was getting payed under the table.
The four years of corruption and incompetence are finally over.
The ONLY Hope i have, is russia doesn’t get to KEEP the territory they illegally STOLE…
Trump just needs to hand Putin a copy of The signed Treaty on Friendship, Cooperation, and Partnership between Ukraine and the Russian Federation, also known as the “Big Treaty”, an agreement signed in 1997 between Ukraine and Russia, which fixed the principle of strategic partnership, the recognition of the inviolability of existing borders, and respect for territorial integrity and mutual commitment not to use its territory to harm the security of each other. The treaty prevents Ukraine and Russia from invading one another’s country respectively, and declaring war.
According to the Budapest Memorandum, Russia, the US and the UK confirmed their recognition of Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine becoming parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons and effectively removing all Soviet nuclear weapons from their soil, and that they agreed to the following:
1. Respect the signatory’s independence and sovereignty in the existing borders
2. Refrain from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of the signatories to the memorandum.
Case closed, Russia should leave seized Ukraine territory.
THING IS as we’ve seen for decades, RUSSIA cares not what documents they sign.. They do what they want, and to heck with it.
…such as the Budapest Memorandum, whereby Ukraine relinquished its vast Soviet-era nuclear arsenal in exchange for the primary signatory nations—U.S., the U.K., and Russia—guaranteeing Ukraine’s sovereignty and borders.
That didn’t age well. Discussion about Ukraine joining NATO created the tension, but it was FJB’s limp statement that we wouldn’t respond that turned that tension into open kinetic warfare.
Trump needs to be careful on this one . Putin cannot be trusted . This could be trump’s Afghanistan. If Putin wants free elections in Ukraine Then I want free elections in Russia