Donald Trump said on Monday that he would talk to the President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky and that of Russia Vladimir Putin to bring an end to the "carnage" of nearly three years of war, as the Kremlin leader lauded Russian army successes on the ground. Both sides have scrambled to seize an advantage on the battlefield before Trump takes office in January, and there has been some concern in Ukraine that it will be pressured to give up land to secure a peace agreement.
Trump has been strongly critical of billions of dollars in aid that Joe Biden's administration has provided to Kyiv to fight off Moscow's invasion.
He addressed his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida on Monday as Putin celebrated his army's accelerating advance in Ukraine in what he called a "landmark" year.
"We'll be talking to President Putin, and we'll be talking to the representatives, Zelensky and representatives from Ukraine," Trump said.
"We gotta stop it, it's carnage," he added, referring to the war.
Trump has repeatedly said he could quickly end the conflict but hasn't said how.
His comments Monday follow his call earlier this month for an "immediate ceasefire" and his statement that "negotiations should begin.".
He met Zelensky in a meeting hosted by French leader Emmanuel Macron in Paris this month, after which the Ukrainian leader said he had argued that Kyiv is seeking an "enduring" peace and "security guarantees".
Poland, a key friend and neighbor of Ukraine, said on Monday Kyiv should not be forced into peace talks, "it is the aggressor and not the victim, who should be encouraged and forced to make concessions and take the initiative," foreign minister Radoslaw Sikorski said.
Ukraine is entering another winter of war as its energy grid is already badly damaged by Russian attacks and Trump spoke as Russian forces were almost at the gates of the key eastern city of Pokrovsk.
Putin struck a defiant and optimistic tone when addressing top military generals in an end-of-year meeting on Monday, claiming his troops had the upper hand across the entire front line.
The comments come with Russia's army advancing across eastern Ukraine at their fastest pace since the first weeks of the offensive.
"Russian troops are firmly holding the strategic initiative along the entire line of contact," Putin said.
He said Russia's army had seized 189 Ukrainian settlements this year and called 2024 a "landmark year in the achievement of the goals of the special military operation", using Moscow's official language for its campaign.
Russian Defense Minister Andrei Belousov addressed the meeting after Putin: Russian forces have so far captured an area totalling nearly 4,500 square kilometres (1,737 square miles) of Ukraine's territory during the current year and capture currently approximately 30 square km every day.
As Russia continues advancing, Monday stated that another small village within the Donetsk region is part of their most recent offensive the Russian army has won.
Putin has faced allegations that Kyiv and the West are exacerbating the close to three years-long fight. North Korea's rapidly increasing involvement was branded this week by 10 nations and the European Union, which termed this an aggressive expansion of fighting with a dangerous impact for the European and Indo-Pacific security sectors.
The release was signed by Foreign Ministers of Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, South Korea, New Zealand, Britain, the United States and the high representative of the European Union.
This came after Ukraine said that it had killed or wounded at least 30 North Korean troops fighting alongside Russia's soldiers in the Kursk border region where Kyiv is mounting an offensive.
The US, South Korea and Ukraine have accused North Korea of sending more than 10,000 soldiers to back Russia.
Putin on Monday also defended Russia's massive defence and security spending on the conflict, amid increasing economic uncertainty at home.
Military spending has topped six percent of GDP, and total defence and security outlays are almost nine per cent.
"It is not, strangely enough, the biggest expenditure in the world, even among countries that do not have any armed conflict," Putin, an ex-KGB spy in power for the last quarter of a century, said.
"Nevertheless, it is a lot of money, and here we need to use it very rationally," he said.
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