Trump seeks Putin meeting as Biden announces aid package to Kyiv

President-elect Donald Trump floated the possibility of a meeting with Kremlin chief Vladimir Putin to end the “bloodbath” in Ukraine, while the outgoing Joe Biden administration pushed through its final aid package for ally defeated Kiev.

“I want to meet and … we set it up,” Trump said during a press conference on Thursday, noting that he would prefer to hold the meeting until after his January 20 presidential inauguration. the meeting will take place as a summit or a state visit.

“President Putin wants to meet. He said that even publicly. And we have to end the war, this is a bloody mess,” Trump said.

Trump has historically had a more cordial relationship with Putin than many Western heads of state, who have increasingly distanced themselves from the Kremlin since Moscow’s February 2022 invasion of its eastern European neighbor.

The strength of Trump’s relationship with Putin has come under scrutiny in a nearly two-year special counsel investigation into claims of Russian interference in the 2016 election. Trump, who won the vote, he denied claims that he had fallen under the influence of the Kremlin.

Putin is ready to meet Trump without reservations, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Friday in Google-translated comments reported by the Russian state news agency Tass. He added that the specifics of such an approach he had yet to agree and will likely hang on Trump’s inauguration, noting that Russia welcomes the president-elect’s intention to return to dialogue.

Western-led efforts to mediate a peace deal, together with the respective cadres 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 mutually contradictory red lines, refusing to join the negotiating table unless they are allowed to keep annexed territories or until Russian troops have left Ukrainian soil, respectively.

Trump’s openness to consult with Putin marks a departure from the relationship led in the last two years by the Biden administration, a staunch supporter of Ukraine throughout the conflict.

The Biden administration has committed about $65.9 billion in security assistance to Kiev since the beginning of the invasion. from January 8. On Thursday, the Department of Defense of the United States announced a $500 million tranche of aid for Ukrainejust 10 days before Biden’s expected exit from the White House.

Questions persist over the extent of US involvement in the devastating war in Ukraine, which enters its third year next month and has indirectly fueled spikes in energy prices and global inflation. because of Western sanctions on Russian resources. Trump has already stated that he could resolve the devastating war in Ukraine within an ambitious deadline of “24 hours”, without disclosing his methods or presenting a concrete ceasefire proposal.

He has also vehemently criticized America’s spending to bolster Ukraine’s defenses, questioned ongoing US participation in the NATO military alliance, and once dubbed Zelenskyy as ” perhaps the greatest salesman of any politician who ever lived”, implying that the aid provided to Ukraine was the result of the political prudence of the Ukrainian leader, rather than the actual needs of his country

All in all, Trump’s comments and incipient indications of trade nationalism have raised wider concerns that potential pressure from the White House or withdrawal of US military support could send a resource-dependent Kiev into a denouement. diplomatic involving territorial concessions to their invader.

Ukraine expects a Trump-Zelenskyy meeting to take place 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 $500 million aid tranche for Ukraine. An earlier version got the figure wrong.