Putin Says Ukraine War ‘Might Not Have Happened If Trump Were President’, Affirms Readiness For Talks With US

<p>Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday praised US counterpart Donald Trump, calling him a “smart” leader, who might have prevented the Ukraine conflict from starting in 2022. He also said that he was ready to hold talks regarding Ukraine. However, Kyiv was quick to warn Russia against being excluded from negotiations.</p>
<p>Despite Trump announcing on Thursday that he was ready to meet Putin “immediately”, Russia said it was still waiting for “signals” from Washington regarding when the talks would be held, AFP reported.</p>
<p>”We have always said, and I want to emphasise this once again, that we are ready for these negotiations on Ukrainian issues,” Putin told a reporter from Russian state TV.</p>
<p>Praising Trump as a “smart” and “pragmatic” man, Putin said, “I cannot but agree with him that if he had been president — if his victory hadn’t been stolen in 2020 — then maybe there would not have been the crisis in Ukraine that emerged in 2022.” He also reiterated the Republican’s unfounded claim that Trump won the US presidential election against Joe Biden in 2020, the AFP report said.</p>
<p>The ongoing Ukraine conflict has had a huge impact on the relations between the two nuclear powers, plunging them to their lowest levels since the Cold War.</p>
<p>Trump, who was took over office for the second time on Monday, called the Ukraine conflict “ridiculous” and threatened Russia with stricter economic sanctions if it does not agree to end its offensive. “If they don’t settle this war soon, like almost immediately, I’m going to put massive tariffs on Russia, and massive taxes, and also big sanctions,” the Republican had said in an interview on Thursday.</p>
<p>On the same day, Trump while speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, said that he would ask Saudi Arabia and OPEC to lower oil prices as he claimed “the Russia-Ukraine war would end immediately if the price came down,” AFP reported.</p>
<p>However, Putin dismissed this claim by Trump and said, “I have a hard time imagining there will be decisions taken that are detrimental to the American economy.”</p>
<h3>Kyiv Warns Against Being Excluded From Talks</h3>
<p>Despite Trump’s claims that he would end the conflict within “24 hours” once in power, neither side has shown any signs of de-escalation since the US President’s inauguration.&nbsp;</p>
<p>Kyiv on Friday warned against being excluded from any talks. “He (Putin) wants to negotiate the fate of Europe — without Europe. And he wants to talk about Ukraine without Ukraine,” the head of Ukraine’s presidential office Andriy Yermak said, as reported by AFP.&nbsp;</p>
<p>”This is not going to happen. Putin needs to come back to reality himself, or he will be brought back. This is not how it works in the modern world,” he added.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, three people were killed and several others wounded in Russian aerial attacks near Kyiv, Ukrainian officials said Friday. Ukraine also fired 120 drones on at least 12 Russian regions, including the capital Moscow.</p>
<p>A 10-storey residential building was hit by fragments of a drone as a head of the region claimed his private home had also been hit.</p>