Donald Trump on Wednesday said Russia was eager to bring an end to the "barbarianism" raging in its war against Ukraine while the US and Russia negotiated putting an end to the war.
While speaking with the press during his visit at the White House, Trump has indicated, "Russia wants to do something. They want to stop the barbarianism going on there.
Thousands of soldiers are being murdered each week. In addition to Russian and Ukrainian troops, there are many Koreans killed. We want to make it end.
He also argued that there would never have been a war on his watch, stating, "It's a senseless war. It should have never happened; it would have never happened if I were President."
Talks to put an end to the three-year-old war were initiated in Riyadh on Tuesday at the Diriyah Palace. US secretary of state Marco Rubio and Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov agreed to "appoint respective high-level teams to begin working on a path to ending the conflict in Ukraine as soon as possible."
But Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy criticized the US and Russia for not inviting Ukraine to the negotiating table. According to Zelenskyy, his government would not receive any result of the negotiations as Ukraine was not a participating entity in the discussions.
Ukraine should never have initiated the war and could have negotiated with Trump earlier if they wanted, claimed Trump.
"Today I learned, oh, well, we weren't invited. Well, you've been there for three years. You should have never begun it. You could have negotiated," he said.
The Riyadh talks are the first official high-level negotiations between the US and Russia since the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, AP reported.
Rubio further added that a couple of European countries would also be invited to join at some point because they have sanctions against Russia too.
Russian foreign policy assistant Yuri Ushakov confirmed the appointment of the negotiating teams but said that it was "hard" to speak about a date for a possible meeting between Trump and Putin, AP reported. Trump had previously announced that he would meet with the Russian president by the end of the month.
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