Putin congratulates 47th president, says Russia ready for peace talks with Trump team

Top officials from
around the globe reached out to congratulate President Donald Trump on his return to office Monday, in many cases sneaking in their respective asks to the leader of the world’s pre-eminent superpower. Among them was Russian President Vladimir Putin, who indicated that Russia was open to discussing “long-term peace” in Eastern Europe.

During a September town hall interview, Trump
warned that “we’re heading into World War III territory” because of the war in Ukraine, adding that unlike the “clowns” in power, he would “heal the world.”

Trump was ridiculed then and on numerous other occasions for suggesting that he would bring Ukraine and Russia to the negotiating table and the war to an end.

“This is a war that should have never happened. It should have never happened. … It’s a shame,” Trump
said after meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in September. “We’ll get it solved. It’s a very complicated puzzle, very complicated puzzle, but we’ll get it solved, and people [will] get on with their lives. Too many people dead.”

Although
reportedly poised to pour 8% of GDP and 40% of total federal expenditure into continued defense and security spending, Putin appears ready for an end to the fighting.

‘The peace through strength policy he announced provides an opportunity to strengthen American leadership and achieve a long-term and just peace.’

“We see statements by the newly elected US President and members of his team about the desire to restore direct contacts with Russia, interrupted through no fault of ours by the outgoing Administration,” Putin said in a meeting Monday with elements of his security council. “We also hear his statements about the need to do everything to prevent a third world war. Of course,
we welcome this attitude and congratulate the elected President of the United States of America on taking office.”

After claiming an openness to establishing “smooth relations of cooperation” with the U.S., Putin noted, “We are also open to dialogue with the new US Administration on the Ukrainian conflict.”

Putin stated the goal of such talks “should not be a short truce, not some kind of respite for regrouping forces and rearmament with the aim of subsequently continuing the conflict, but a long-term peace based on respect for the legitimate interests of all people, all nations living in this region.”

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy similarly
congratulated Trump on his inauguration and noted in a statement that the 47th president “is always decisive, and the peace through strength policy he announced provides an opportunity to strengthen American leadership and achieve a long-term and just peace, which is the top priority.”

Following President Joe Biden’s
suggestion that Putin “does not want any full-blown war,” Russian forces stormed into Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022. After 1,061 days of fighting, which has brought death to hundreds of thousands and displacement to millions of people — Russia now occupies roughly 18% of the country.

‘Politics is the art of compromise.’

While both nations
reportedly came close to negotiating an end to the conflict in early 2022 — where Russia’s primary requirement was that Ukraine stay indefinitely out of NATO — the talks fell apart. The New York Times indicated that Russians killed the negotiations with a toxic clause that would have given Moscow a veto on military interventions by the U.S. and other nations on Ukraine’s behalf. The Kremlin alternatively suggested that former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson was responsible for killing the talks.

In the years and months since, Kyiv and Moscow have worked to maximize battlefield advantage and territorial coverage at least in part to negotiate ultimately from relative positions of strength. Zelenskyy, however,
told the French paper Le Parisien last month that Ukraine does not have the military wherewithal to retake the territory presently occupied by Russia.

“If today we don’t have the strength to win back all of our territory, maybe the West will find the strength to put Putin in his place … at the [negotiating] table and diplomatically deal with this war,” said Zelenskyy.

Putin told reporters in December that “politics is the art of compromise. And we have always said that we are ready for both negotiations and compromise.”

He previously
noted, however, that while amenable to “reasonable compromises,” the “outcome should be in favor of Russia.”

The Times
noted that negotiations will likely require consensus not only on territorial recognition, troop withdrawals, and on Ukraine’s potential international affiliations, but also on a host of secondary questions regarding, for instance, the matter of reparations and who will rebuild Ukraine’s toppled cities; what will happen to the International Criminal Court’s arrest warrants for Putin; and whether the U.S. will lift its sanctions on Russia.

Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!