Vladimir Putin has emphasised that he is open for talks with Donald Trump on a broad range of issues including Russia’s war in Ukraine as he called for the two leaders to meet.
The Russian president also echoed he US counterpart’s claim the conflict in Ukraine could have been prevented had he been in the White House in 2022 in what was his bluntest endorsement yet of Trump’s refusal to accept his defeat in the 2020 election.
In the interview with Russian state television on Friday, Putin praised Trump as a “clever and pragmatic man” who is focused on US interests and said: “We believe the current president’s statements about his readiness to work together. We are always open to this and ready for negotiations.”
He continued: “We always had a business-like, pragmatic but also trusting relationship with the current US president. 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.”
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky said on Saturday that he believed Trump could end the war – but only if Ukraine was involved in the talks.
Trump has expressed willingness to speak to Putin about ending the war – although promises made during his campaign that he would end the conflict within 24 hours of taking office have not materialised, with his aides since saying a deal could take months. In the meantime, Trump looked set to fulfil a campaign pledge of freezing aid to Ukraine to the shock of the rest of the West.
Trump has repeatedly said he would not have allowed the conflict to start if he had been in office, even though he was president as fighting grew in the east of the country between Kyiv’s forces and separatists aligned with Moscow, ahead of Putin sending in tens of thousands of troops in 2022.
It comes after Trump told Fox News on Thursday that Zelensky should have surrendered to Putin to avoid the conflict in an attempt to blame the Ukrainian president for Russia’s bloody war.
But earlier in the week, the US president called on Putin to negotiate an end to the nearly three-year war and threatened to impose further sanctions on Moscow if the Kremlin leader does not acquiesce.
Zelensky said later on Friday that Putin was trying to manipulate efforts by Trump to secure a peaceful solution.
In his nightly video address, Zelensky said the head of the foreign intelligence service reported to a meeting of Ukraine’s military command about “Russia’s military potential and Putin’s readiness to continue the war and manipulate world leaders”.
Putin, meanwhile, emphasised on Friday that he is open to talks but pointed to Zelensky’s 2022 decision to rule out negotiations with Moscow. “How is it possible to conduct talks if they are banned?” Putin said. “If the talks start in the existing legal framework, they would be illegitimate and the results of those talks could also be declared illegitimate.”
He also said the US and Russia have many other items on their agenda, including nuclear arms control and economic issues.
“We’d better meet and have a calm conversation on all issues of interest to both the United States and Russia based on today’s realities,” Putin said.
On Saturday, Zelensky met with president Maia Sandu of neighbouring Moldova.
At a joint press conference, he expressed his hopes Europe and the US will be involved in any talks about ending his country’s war with Russia and insisted Ukraine must be involved in any discussions for such negotiations to have any meaningful impact.
“Otherwise it will not work. Because Russia does not want to end the war, while Ukraine wants to end it,” he told reporters.
Meanwhile, in Slovakia, prime minister Robert Fico rejected protesters’ calls for his resignation on Saturday after tens of thousands demonstrated against his government’s policy shift closer to Russia.
Around 60,000 protested in the capital Bratislava on Friday, organisers estimated, and media said in total around 100,000 had turned out for rallies in cities across the country, the biggest demonstrations since Fico returned to power in 2023.
The protests come after Fico privately travelled to Moscow in December to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin, a rare encounter for a European Union leader since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022.