Kremlin: Putin ready to talk to Trump without preconditions
The Kremlin said Friday that Russian President Vladimir Putin is ready to talk to Donald Trump without preconditions, after the US president-elect said he was preparing to hold a meeting to end the war in Ukraine.
“The president has repeatedly expressed his openness to contacts with world leaders, including the US president, including Donald Trump,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters, praising Trump’s “readiness to solve problems through dialogue”.
Peskov continued, “There are no required conditions… What is necessary is a mutual desire and political will to solve problems through dialogue,” which he said the US president-elect possesses.
“Donald Trump is showing his desire to solve problems through dialogue… We welcome that, and we are proceeding from a mutual desire to meet,” he said, stressing that there are no specific plans for dialogue at the moment.
Trump said Thursday he was preparing to meet with Vladimir Putin to end the conflict in Ukraine.
The Republican President Elect, who will take office in the White House on January 20, had promised during his election campaign to end the conflict in Ukraine within 24 hours, calling for an immediate ceasefire and negotiations to end the war.
Putin expressed his readiness to negotiate on condition that facts on the ground in Ukraine, where Russian forces are making progress on the eastern front and now control about 20% of the country, are taken into account.
Putin demanded that Russia retain the Ukrainian territories it has declared annexed.
Putin also called on Ukraine to abandon its desire to join NATO.
Ukraine’s foreign ministry said Friday it sees nothing new in Trump’s comments about a possible meeting with Putin.
“We all in Ukraine want to end the war in a fair way for Ukraine and we see that President Trump is also determined to end the war,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Georgiy Tekhy was quoted as saying by the Interfax-Ukraine news agency.
He said Kiev was preparing to hold talks with US officials immediately within ten days of Trump taking office, with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky participating.
