United States President Donald Trump has suggested that he may meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin “very soon,” as officials from both countries prepare for discussions in Saudi Arabia to address the ongoing war in Ukraine.
“There’s no exact time set, but it could be very soon,” Trump told reporters on Sunday ahead of the planned talks between US and Russian officials in Saudi Arabia.
“It’ll be soon; we’ll see what happens,” Trump added when asked if the meeting could take place within this month.
After US Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, downplayed expectations of an immediate end to the war, Trump expressed hope that Putin may be looking to bring the conflict to a close.
“They have a huge, powerful machine, you know that. They defeated Hitler and they defeated Napoleon. They’ve been at war for a long time,” Trump said to the press while on Air Force One. “They’ve done it before. But I think he’d like to stop fighting.”
When asked whether he thought Putin intended to take control of all of Ukraine, Trump revealed that he had already asked Putin this question, adding that it would be a “big problem for us” if that were the case.
Earlier on Sunday, Rubio stated that Putin had shared his desire for peace during a phone call with Trump the week before, although he warned that the conflict would not end quickly.
“Obviously, it has to be followed by action. The coming weeks and days will show whether it’s serious or not,” Rubio said in an interview on CBS’s Face the Nation. “One phone call doesn’t make peace. One phone call can’t resolve a war as complicated as this one.”
The US Secretary of State also mentioned that the details of the meeting, including which Russian officials would be attending, were still being worked out.
“I don’t have any specifics this morning, other than to say we’re ready to follow the president’s lead and begin exploring ways, if opportunities arise, to start a peace process,” Rubio noted.
Trump’s outreach to Russia has sparked concerns in both Ukraine and Europe, with fears that the US may rush to create a peace deal that could involve giving up some Ukrainian land, without properly consulting Kyiv or European allies.
Neither Ukrainian nor European officials are participating in the talks in Riyadh, though Rubio stressed that any meaningful negotiations resulting from the meeting would need to include both Ukraine and Europe.
Meanwhile, the Ukrainian President, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, in an interview with NBC’s Meet the Press, said he would “never accept” any agreement made without Ukraine’s involvement.
“This is the war in Ukraine, against us, and it’s our human losses,” Zelenskyy said while attending the Munich Security Conference on Friday.
Speaking at the same conference on Saturday, European foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas warned that the Trump administration’s approach reminded her of the failed appeasement strategy before World War II.
“As I stand here in Munich tonight, I cannot help but ask, have we been here before? Czechoslovakia, 1938,” Kallas said, referring to the Munich Agreement that allowed Nazi Germany to annex the Sudetenland in exchange for a promise of peace.
“We have an aggressor at our door, determined to take land that doesn’t belong to him. And the negotiators, not us, are already giving up their bargaining power before talks even start.”
European leaders are set to meet in Paris on Monday for an urgent summit to discuss the war and Ukraine’s future security.
Ahead of the summit, UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer said that he is “ready and willing” to send British troops to Ukraine to assist with peacekeeping if an agreement is reached.
“I do not say this lightly,” Starmer wrote in an opinion piece for The Daily Telegraph. “I deeply feel the responsibility of potentially sending British troops into harm’s way. But any role in helping to secure Ukraine’s safety is also securing the safety of our continent and our country.”
“The end of this war, when it comes, cannot just be a temporary pause before Putin attacks again.”
(Aljazeera)
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