The President of the United States, Donald Trump, said that he would “probably” meet the Russian president Vladimir Putin this month while launching a large by effectively accusing Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of being to blame for the invasion from Moscow.
Addressing journalists after us and Russian officials met on Tuesday for their first series of talks in Saudi Arabia, Trump rejected the complaints that kyiv was refused a seat during the negotiations to end the war of Russia in Ukraine.
“I think I have the power to put an end to this war, and I think it goes very well. But today I heard: “Oh, well, we were not invited”. Well, you have been there for three years. You should have ended it…, “Trump said at a press conference in his Mar-A-Lago field in Palm Beach, Florida.
“You should never have started. You could have concluded an agreement. I could have concluded an agreement for Ukraine. »»
Trump said it was “much more confident” to reach an agreement following talks in Riyadh led by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.
“They were very good. Russia wants to do something, they want to stop wild barbarism, “he said.
When asked if his administration would support Russia calls for elections in Ukraine as part of any peace agreement, Trump said without evidence that Zelenskyy had a note of approval of only 4% and noted that The country’s elections had been suspended under martial law.
In an opinion poll conducted by the International Sociology Institute in kyiv in December, 52% of respondents said they had trusted Zelenskyy, down 12 percentage points compared to February.
“Yeah, I would say that, you know, when you want a seat at the table … wouldn’t the inhabitants of Ukraine have to say:” We haven’t had any elections for a long time ? “,” Said Trump.
“It is not something from Russia, it is something that comes from me, and coming from many other countries too.”
Trump’s comments occurred after Zelenskyy said kyiv wanted to make sure Washington and Moscow would decide on a “behind our back” agreement.
“No decision can be made without Ukraine on how to end the war in Ukraine,” Zelenskyy told journalists in Turkiye, where he had interviews with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
During Tuesday talks in Riyadh, Rubio and Lavrov agreed to “name high -level respective teams to start working on the path of implementation of the conflict in Ukraine as soon as possible”, according to the US State Department .
US National Security Advisor Mike Waltz later told journalists in Riyadh that it was a “practical reality” that negotiations would imply a discussion on the territory and post-conflict security guarantees.
In the midst of the concerns that Trump is inclined to grant radical concessions to Moscow, the continuation of an agreement, European leaders had trouble forming a unified response to negotiations.
Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Keir Starmer, said this week that he would be willing to send peacekeeping troops to Ukraine, while French President Emmanuel Macron said he would plan to send a number Limited troops in areas “outside of any conflict zone”.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, however, rejected the discussion of a post-war security force on Monday before any agreement was concluded as “very inappropriate”.
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, on the other hand, excluded the sending of Polish troops to Ukraine.
During his press conference in Mar-A-Lago, Trump expressed his support for the use of European peace soldiers but excluded the deployment of American troops. “If they want to do that, it’s great, I’m absolutely for that,” said Trump.
“I’m absolutely for that if they want to do that.”
