US President Donald Trump said on Wednesday (local time) that he is ready to hold another summit with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin but only if Kremlin is ready to work towards a ‘peace deal’ with Ukraine, aiming to end their conflict that has continued since February 2022.
However, the 80-year-old Republican leader said the meeting would take place at the right time, as he argued that maintaining good relations with Russia and Ukraine is in favour of the US.
“He’d do it. I want it, but I want to do it when we’re ready to do a peace deal,” he told reporters at the Oval Office in White House. “We want to have good relationship with Russia, Ukraine, with everybody. Be great for business.”
Trump also took veiled dig at his predecessor Joe Biden and argued that the Russia-Ukraine wouldn’t have happened had he returned to office following the 2020 presidential elections. He claimed that he had held talks with Putin in his first term from 2016 to 2020, saying he believed that there was “zero chance” of war at that time.
He also said there is “tremendous animosity” between Putin and Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy at the present time.
“It’s a war that should have never happened. If the election weren’t rigged in 2020, that war would have never happened. And it didn’t happen for four years. I was there 2016 to 2020, and I would talk to Putin; it would have never happened. Zero chance. And when I left, I saw what was going on and I said, ‘I think these guys are going to go to war.’ I thought it was crazy; it wouldn’t have happened,” he said.
Trump and Putin had met in August last year in Alaska, which both leaders described as positive. During a press conference back then, Putin also invited Trump to Moscow for another summit. However, no further meetings have taken place and the situation has remained escalated.
The Russians and the Ukrainians have kept targeting each other, while Zelenskyy has reached out to his Europeans allies for help. Speculations were also rife that the Russians could target a NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) member, but both Trump and Kremlin have denied it, describing the reports as false.
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