Trump Signals Meeting with Russia’s Putin as Ukraine War Looms Large

President-elect Donald Trump has announced that a meeting is in the works with Russian President Vladimir Putin, signaling a potential shift in US policy towards the ongoing conflict in Ukraine, Al Jazeera reports.

“President Putin wants to meet. He has said that even publicly and we have to get that war over with. That’s a bloody mess,” Trump said while speaking to Republican governors at his Mar-a-Lago resort on Thursday.

The announcement comes just weeks before Trump’s inauguration, and follows repeated campaign promises to find a swift resolution to the nearly three-year-old war. However, the Republican leader offered no timeline for the proposed meeting and has yet to detail a concrete plan for peace.

While the Kremlin has acknowledged Putin’s willingness to engage, with spokesman Dmitry Peskov saying on Thursday that he would welcome the contact, he also noted that formal requests have not been made and that it would be more appropriate to wait until Trump officially takes office.

Trump has voiced agreement with Russia’s position that Ukraine should not be part of NATO.

“A big part of the problem is, Russia – for many, many years, long before Putin – said, ‘You could never have NATO involved with Ukraine.’…and I could understand their feelings about that,” Trump told reporters on Tuesday.

This stance contrasts with the Biden administration’s continued military support of Ukraine, which has sparked controversy among Americans, with some believeing that Washington provides too much resources to Kyiv instead of allocating them to solve domestic issues. Trump also frequently criticizes the military aid package the US has provided to Ukraine, which has amounted to over $175 billion, including more than $60 billion in security assistance. Whether this level of support will continue under a Trump presidency is uncertain, as he has repeatedly vowed to end the conflict rapidly.

Adding to controversy is Trump’s strained relationship with Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky, whom he has mocked as a “salesman.”

Furthermore, Trump’s approach to NATO continues to be a point of contention. While most European members have begun to move towards NATO’s current recommendation of spending 2% of their GDP on defense, Trump has called for a much larger hike to 5%. He has suggested the US may reconsider its commitment to the alliance if members don’t meet this increased spending threshold.