Russian President Vladimir Putin and incoming United States President Donald Trump have both expressed desires to meet this week, and it now appears that a meeting is moving one step closer
10:23, 10 Jan 2025Updated 10:27, 10 Jan 2025
The pair have a warm relationship(Image: AFP via Getty Images)
The main mouthpiece for Russian President Vladimir Putin has welcomed Donald Trump’s willingness to meet. Earlier this week, incoming United States President Trump claimed that Putin “wants to meet, and we are setting it up”.
Speaking at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida on Thursday, he said: “He has said that even publicly and we have to get that war over with. That’s a bloody mess.”
And now Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov has welcomed the news, stating today during a daily media briefing: “We see that Mr. Trump also declares his readiness to solve problems through dialogue, we welcome this. There are still no specifics.”
Peskov, right, gave comments earlier today(Image: POOL/AFP via Getty Images)
And on the potential of a trilateral meeting between the US, China and Russia, Peskov said: “No specific thoughts flashed through there, just listen to what was said in English. That is, these are answers to purely hypothetical questions that journalists asked him.”
Trump has claimed that he will end the war between Russia and Ukraine, but admitted that he would make Ukraine give up land already occupied by Putin’s forces – something President Zelenskyy has continuously rubbished.
However, on Thursday an unnamed European official claimed to the Financial Times that Trump’s want to end the war was about only one thing: “The whole [Trump] team is obsessed with strength and looking strong, so they’re recalibrating the Ukraine approach.”
No invitation to Ukraine has been made by Trump’s team – which you would assume would be key to any kind of peace deal and end to the war.
Meanwhile, Peskov also commented on Trump’s claim that he wanted to “buy Greenland”.
He said: “The Arctic is a zone of our national interests, our strategic interests. We are watching the rather dramatic development of the situation very closely, but so far, thank God, at the level of statements.”
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