Former U.S. President Donald Trump said on Jan. 31 that his team has already engaged in "very serious" discussions with Russia about its war in Ukraine. He suggested that he and Russian President Vladimir Putin could soon take "significant steps" toward ending the conflict.
"We will be speaking, and I think we will perhaps do something that’ll be significant," Trump told reporters in the Oval Office. "We want to end that war. That war would not have started if I was president."
Trump did not clarify who in his administration has been in contact with Russia but insisted that discussions were already underway. When asked if he had personally spoken with Putin, he declined to answer directly: "I don’t want to say that."
He has repeatedly claimed that the war would not have started under his leadership, despite the fact that hostilities between Ukraine and Russian proxies in eastern Ukraine escalated during his presidency, leading up to Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022.
Since returning to office, Trump has criticized President Volodymyr Zelensky, arguing that he should have negotiated with Putin to prevent the war. He has also promised to end the conflict quickly if elected in 2024, frequently attacking President Joe Biden’s administration for providing billions in military and economic aid to Ukraine.
In a recent interview with Russian state television, Putin praised Trump, calling him a "clever and pragmatic man" focused on U.S. interests. "We always had a business-like, pragmatic but also trusting relationship with the current U.S. president," Putin said. "I couldn’t disagree with him that if he had been president if they hadn’t stolen victory from him in 2020, the crisis that emerged in Ukraine in 2022 could have been avoided."
Trump’s relationship with Putin has long been a subject of scrutiny. During his 2016 campaign, he publicly urged Russia to find and release Hillary Clinton’s deleted emails. As president, he dismissed U.S. intelligence findings on Russian election interference and instead sided with Putin, later calling his actions in Ukraine "genius" and "savvy."
Daniel Kochis
(Updated: )
