Russian President Vladimir Putin would welcome contact with Donald Trump if Trump's political will remains after his inauguration as US president on January 20, the Kremlin said on Thursday.
At present, there are no requests for contact from the US side, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said. Still, it would be reasonable to wait until Trump takes office, he added.
Speaking at a recent press conference at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, President-elect Trump said he knew the Russian leader would want to meet with him, adding that such a meeting would only be appropriate after his inauguration.
Trump said he can "understand the Russians' feelings" about President Joe Biden allegedly breaking a "deal" to deny Ukraine NATO membership.
Talking on the causes of the war, Trump claimed that the prospects of Ukraine joining the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) had been "a major issue for Russia for many, many years."
"You know, a big part of the problem was Russia for many, many years, long before Putin said, you could never have NATO involved with Ukraine. Now they've said … that's been like written in stone.". Somewhere along the line (US President Joe) Biden said no, they should be able to join NATO. Well, then Russia has somebody right on their doorstep and I could understand their feeling about that," Trump told reporters on Tuesday at Mar-a-Lago in Florida.
"There were lots of mistakes made in that negotiation. When I heard the way that Biden was negotiating, I said you're going to end up in a war and it turned out to be a very bad war. That war could escalate to be much worse than it is right now," he said in response to a question.
Last month, Trump said he would speak to the President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky and that of Russia Vladimir Putin to end the "carnage" of nearly three years of war.
Trump has been highly critical of billions of dollars of aid that the Biden administration provided to Kyiv to battle Moscow's invasion.
“We’ll be talking to President Putin, and we’ll be talking to the representatives, Zelensky and representatives from Ukraine,” Trump had said.
“We gotta stop it, it’s carnage,” he added, referring to the war.
Trump has repeatedly claimed he could swiftly end the conflict but has not provided concrete details on how.
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