Trump seeks meeting with Putin as Biden announces aid package for Kyiv

President-elect Donald Trump floated the possibility of a meeting with Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin to end the “bloody mess” in Ukraine, while the outgoing Joe Biden administration pushed its latest aid package to embattled ally Kyiv.

“He wants to meet and … we’re setting it up,” Trump said at a press conference on Thursday, indicating he’d prefer to hold off on the meeting until after he takes office on January 20. It is still undecided. the meeting will be held as a summit or state visit.

“President Putin wants to gather. He’s said that publicly. And we have to end that war, it’s a bloody mess,” Trump said.

Trump has historically enjoyed a friendlier relationship with Putin than many Western heads of state, who have increasingly distanced themselves from the Kremlin since Moscow invaded its Eastern European neighbor in February 2022.

The strength of Trump’s relationship with Putin has been at the center of a nearly two-year special counsel investigation into claims of Russian meddling in the 2016 election. Trump, who won the polls, denied falling under the Kremlin’s influence.

Putin is ready to meet Trump without reservation, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told Google on Friday the comments The Russian state news agency Tass reported. He added the uniqueness of this approach it was still undecided and is likely to wait for Trump’s inauguration, with Russia eyeing the president-elect’s plans to backtrack on the conversation.

Efforts by the West to broker a peace deal, along with the frameworks of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and influential Chinese mediator Xi Jinping, have yet to be mutually accepted or bear fruit. Moscow and Kiev have so far set contradictory red lines, refusing to enter the negotiating table unless they retain annexed territories or Russian troops withdraw from Ukrainian soil, respectively.

Trump’s openness to engage with Putin is a departure from the relationship that has been led over the past two years by the Biden administration, which has been staunchly pro-Ukraine throughout the conflict.

The Biden administration has committed about $65.9 billion in security aid to Kyiv since the start of the invasion. from January 8. On Thursday, the US Department of Defense a 500 million dollars in aid for UkraineLess than 10 days before Biden’s planned departure from the White House.

Questions persist over US involvement in the devastating war in Ukraine, which will enter its third year next month and has indirectly fueled rising energy prices and global inflation due to Western resource sanctions. Trump said he could resolve the devastating war in Ukraine in an ambitious “24-hour” timeframe, without disclosing his methods or presenting specific ceasefire proposals.

He has also sharply criticized American spending on strengthening Ukraine’s defenses, questioned US participation in the NATO military alliance and once called Zelenskyy “perhaps the biggest salesman of any politician who ever lived” in a reference to aid. Ukraine was the result of the political skill of the Ukrainian leader, rather than the actual needs of his country.

Overall, Trump’s comments and new signs of trade nationalism have raised wider concerns that potential pressure from the White House or the withdrawal of US military aid could lead a resource-dependent Kyiv to a diplomatic end involving territorial concessions to its invader.

Ukraine hopes to hold a Trump-Zelenskyy meeting shortly after the US president-elect takes office, ministry spokesman Heorhii Tykhyi said on Friday, according to Reuters.

Correction: On Thursday, the US Department of Defense announced a portion of $500 million in aid to Ukraine. An earlier version misstated the figure.