The president of the United States, donald trumpurged his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin this Monday to find an agreement to “end the war” in Ukrainewithout which, he claimed, he is “destroying Russia.”
Before being inaugurated as the 47th president of the United States, Trump said he was preparing to meet with Putin in order to “end” this conflict, triggered by the Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022.
From the Oval Room of the White House, the new US president insisted to reporters that “he should speak with President Putin (…) who will be very pleased to end this war.”
But for the first time, Trump clearly put pressure on his Russian counterpart, believing that his country was headed for catastrophe if it refused a ceasefire or peace agreement with the Ukrainian president. Volodymyr Zelensky.
“Zelensky wants to make a deal, I don’t know if Putin wants to, maybe, he should make a deal. I think he’s destroying Russia by not making a deal,” Trump said.
“I think Russia will have big problems,” he added.
The comments mark an unusually critical stance by Trump toward Putin, for whom he has expressed admiration in the past.
“I got along very well with him, I would expect him to want to reach an agreement,” he noted, recalling that “most people thought the war would be over in a week, and now we are three years in.”
He added that the Russian economy was being hit hard, including by inflation.
Putin also referred earlier to the issue of the war in Ukraine and said he was “open to dialogue” to achieve a “lasting peace.”
“We are also open to dialogue with the new US administration on the Ukrainian conflict,” Putin said in a meeting with ministers broadcast on Russian television.
