Expectations of interaction between the two world leaders were heightened on Friday when Russian President Vladimir Putin declared he was prepared to discuss the Ukraine war with his US counterpart, Donald Trump.
Putin told a Russian state TV reporter, “As for the issue of negotiations… we have always said, and I want to emphasise this again, that we are ready for these negotiations on Ukrainian issues.”
Putin went on to say that if Donald Trump had been president of the United States at the time, the 2022 “crisis in Ukraine”—a reference to Moscow’s full-scale military offensive—might have been avoided.
Putin told a state TV reporter, “I can’t help but agree with him that maybe the Ukrainian crisis that arose in 2022 would not have occurred if he had been president—if his victory hadn’t been stolen in 2020.”
