Trump says he and Putin could do something ‘significant’ toward ending Russia’s war in Ukraine

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump on Friday said his administration has already had “very serious” discussions with Russia about its war in Ukraine and that he and Russian President Vladimir Putin could soon take “significant” action toward ending the grinding conflict.

“We will be speaking, and I think will perhaps do something that’ll be significant,” Trump said in an exchange with reporters in the Oval Office. “We want to end that war. That war would have not started if I was president.”

Trump did not say who from his administration has been in contact with the Russians but insisted the two sides were “already talking.”

Asked if he has already spoken directly with Putin, Trump was coy: “I don’t want to say that.”

Trump has said repeatedly he wouldn’t have allowed the conflict to start if he had been in office, even though he was president as fighting grew in eastern Ukraine between Kyiv’s forces and separatists backed by Moscow, ahead of Putin sending in tens of thousands of troops in 2022.

Trump since returning to office has criticized Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, saying he should have made a deal with Putin to avoid the conflict.

The president in a Fox News interview earlier in January ridiculed Zelenskyy as “talking so brave,” when Ukraine was so dependent on U.S. aid to fight its war.

“They were brave, but we gave them billions of dollars,” Trump said.

In a recent interview with Russian state television, Putin praised Trump as a “clever and pragmatic man” who is 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.”

The Russian’s president’s statement was also a blunt endorsement of Trump’s refusal to accept his defeat in the 2020 election. Numerous federal and local officials, a long list of courts, top former campaign staffers and even his own attorney general have all said there is no evidence of the fraud he alleges.

Trump in his 2024 campaign vowed to bring a quick end to the war, and repeatedly criticized President Joe Biden’s administration for spending billions in U.S. taxpayer money on military and economic aide for Kyiv to help it fight back against Russia.

Trump’s relationship with Putin has been scrutinized since his 2016 campaign for president, when he called on Russia to find and make public missing emails deleted by Hillary Clinton, his Democratic opponent.

Trump publicly sided with Putin over U.S. intelligence officials on whether Russia had interfered in the 2016 election to help him, and Trump has praised the Russian leader and even called him “pretty smart” for invading Ukraine.

Aamer Madhani And Will Weissert, The Associated Press