Russian President Vladimir Putin congratulated President Donald Trump on his to the White House on Monday, saying he had “displayed courage and won a convincing victory” and saying he welcomed restoring “direct contact” between the two countries. President Trump confirmed “I’ll be meeting with president Putin”, but laid down a hard line, warning the Russian it would be in his own best interests to take the deal offered, asserting: “he can’t be thrilled, it’s not making him look good”.
While Russia has persistently said it wants to talk to the U.S. about Ukraine — there hasn’t been any top-level communication since the Russian invasion began — Putin’s comments made clear that Russia comes with its own demands, not least that it be treated as an equal and with “respect”. Putin said during a call with his national security council: “The most important thing there is to eliminate the root causes of the crisis, which we have talked about many times. This is the most essential thing.”
That is no small request: the reasons for the war starting in the first place are not a matter of common ground between Russia and the West, with NATO generally taking the view that Russia’s war of aggression was one of choice, and illegal.
The Kremlin further revealed today that it had discussed relations with the U.S. in a telephone call between President Putin and China’s Xi Jinping. It was stated: “President Xi shared his assessments of his phone calls with US President Donald Trump… In this context, the leaders, naturally, discussed certain aspects of the development of potential contacts with the US administration”. The conversation was long scheduled and not in response to U.S. inauguration, they say.
So a spokesman for Putin’s government on Tuesday again affirms Russia is ready to speak, but confirms no plans have actually yet been made. The spokesman said: “We are ready. So far, there have been no attempts to contact the Russian side”.
Speaking in the Oval Office to press as he signed a stack of executive orders on Monday, President Trump was drawn to speak about the Ukraine War — which he has vowed to quickly end and that “it would never have started if I was President” — and Russia several times. Speaking of a possible forthcoming meeting with Vladimir Putin — “Could be very soon”, he said — Trump expressed his view the war is going badly for Russia and that Putin himself ought to be looking for a way out.
President Trump said: “He can’t be thrilled, he’s not doing so well. I mean he’s grinding it out, but most people thought that war would have been over in about one week. And now we’re into three years. So he can’t be thrilled, it’s not making him look good.”
Trump spoke of deal making , saying Putin “would be very well off to end that war”, and remarking while Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky is ready to make a deal, the Russian may not be ready yet. Nevertheless, he said: “He should make a deal, I think he’s destroying Russia by not making a deal. I think Russia’s going to be in big trouble, you take a look at their economy, you take a look at the inflation in Russia. I get along with him great and I would hope he wants to make a deal.”
Another important remark by President Trump were rare comments on Russian and Ukrainian casualty figures. While Ukraine makes frequent claims of how many Russian men it has killed and maimed — the most recent standing at over 818,000 — any discussion at all in the West of Ukrainian casualties is comparatively rare. President Trump asserted Russia had suffered more casualties in the war than Ukraine, but assuming his figures are correct the numbers run astonishingly close.
He said: “We have numbers, almost a million Russian soldiers have been killed. About 700,000 Ukrainian soldiers are killed. Russia’s bigger, they have more soldiers to lose. But that’s still no way to run a country.”
Ukraine has claimed this week that 2024 was the most deadly of the war for Russia so far, the country having allegedly sustained more casualties than 2022 and 2023 combined. Of the 434,000 casualties said to have been inflicted on Russian Federation forces in 2024, “approximately 150,000” are claimed to be kills.
Breitbart News
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