Trump says he and Putin could do something ‘significant’ toward ending Russia’s war in Ukraine

[Pelican Press 0]

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Trump says he and Putin could do something ‘significant’ toward ending Russia’s war in Ukraine

WASHINGTON (AP) —

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on Friday said his administration has already had “very serious” discussions with Russia about its war in Ukraine and that he and Russian President

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could soon take “significant” action toward ending the grinding conflict.

“We will be speaking, and I think will perhaps do something that’ll be significant,” Trump said in an exchange with reporters in the Oval Office. “We want to end that war. That war would have not started if I was president.”

Trump did not say who from his administration has been in contact with the Russians but insisted the two sides were “already talking.”

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Asked if he has already spoken directly with Putin, Trump was coy: “I don’t want to say that.”

Trump has said repeatedly he wouldn’t have allowed the conflict to start if he had been in office, even though he was president as fighting grew in eastern Ukraine between Kyiv’s forces and separatists backed by Moscow, ahead of Putin sending in tens of thousands of troops in 2022.

Trump since returning to office has criticized Ukrainian

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saying he should have made a deal with Putin to avoid the conflict.

The president in a Fox News interview earlier in January ridiculed Zelenskyy as “talking so brave,” when Ukraine was so dependent on U.S. aid to fight its war.

“They were brave, but we gave them billions of dollars,” Trump said.

In a recent interview with Russian state television, Putin praised Trump as a

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who is focused on U.S. interests.

“We always had a business-like, pragmatic but also trusting relationship with the current U.S. president,” Putin said. “I couldn’t disagree with him that if he had been president, if they hadn’t stolen victory from him in 2020, the crisis that emerged in Ukraine in 2022 could have been avoided.”

The Russian’s president’s statement was also a blunt endorsement of

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in the 2020 election. Numerous federal and local officials, a long list of courts, top former campaign staffers and even

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have all said there is

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.

Trump in his 2024 campaign vowed to bring a quick end to the war, and repeatedly criticized President Joe Biden’s administration for spending billions in U.S. taxpayer money on military and economic aide for Kyiv to help it fight back against Russia.

Trump’s relationship with Putin has been scrutinized since his 2016 campaign for president, when he called on Russia to find and make public missing emails deleted by

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, his Democratic opponent.

Trump publicly sided with Putin over U.S. intelligence officials on whether Russia had interfered in the 2016 election to help him, and Trump

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the Russian leader and even called him “pretty smart” for invading Ukraine.

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#Trump #Putin #significant #Russias #war #Ukraine

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