US President-elect Donald Trump has indicated he intends to hold a telephone conversation with Russian President Vladimir Putin shortly after being sworn in as president, CNN reported, citing sources. The call is expected to occur within a few days of Trump’s Monday inauguration.
People familiar with the matter say the main purpose of the conversation is to start planning a face-to-face meeting between the two leaders in the coming months with the goal of trying to end the war in Ukraine.
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Trump’s team reportedly started preparing for this meeting weeks ago, but it’s still unclear if an actual date for the call has been locked in.
The Washington Post earlier reported that Trump and Putin had been in touch shortly after the US election. According to its sources Trump called Putin in November and urged him not to escalate the war, reminding him of “Washington’s sizable military presence in Europe.” The Kremlin denied the call ever happened, dismissing the reports as “fiction.”
Switzerland and Serbia have both offered to host a Trump-Putin meeting, which has raised questions about who else might be involved.
Trump’s pick for national security adviser, Congressman Mike Waltz, said it’s too soon to say if Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky will join the talks. “We haven’t set the exact framework for that yet, we’re working on that,” Waltz told ABC News on Jan.12.
What Trump’s Inauguration Will Mean for the Ukraine and Russia War
Waltz said that Trump’s strategy would be to develop personal relationships with key players including Zelensky and Putin to hammer out an agreement.
Waltz said that were Russia to prove unwilling to come to the negotiating table, the US might consider additional shipments of long-range strike weapons to Ukraine.
With the inauguration happening within hours of this piece being written, efforts to organize talks with Putin are expected to ramp up quickly.
Trump repeatedly promised previously that he would end the war in Ukraine within 24 hours of taking office – although his spokespersons have rowed back on that in recent weeks, saying it was aimed to get a deal done within weeks or months – but faith that the New York real estate baron’s negotiating skills can solve everything fast is still solid.
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