During a meeting with Russia’s Security Council on Monday, Putin said that his country values the new US administration’s statements regarding its intention to reestablish direct communications with Russia.
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday welcomed Donald Trump’s stated intent to “restore contact with Russia” in a congratulatory message as the new US president took office for the second time.
During an operational meeting with Russia’s Security Council, Putin said that his country values the new US administration’s statements regarding its intention to reestablish direct communications with Russia and its commitment to taking all necessary measures to avert World War III.
“We see statements by the newly elected US President and members of his team about the desire to restore direct contacts with Russia, which were interrupted through no fault of ours by the outgoing administration,” he said.
“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,” Putin added.
The Russian President also expressed his willingness to engage in discussions regarding the Ukraine conflict.
While Trump has pledged to broker a peace deal in Ukraine, as he takes office, peace seems as elusive as ever.
Ahead of his inauguration, Trump said a meeting with Putin was being planned. “President Putin wants to meet; he’s said that even publicly, and we have to get that war over with,” Trump said on 9 January.
In 2018, Trump and Putin met at a one-on-one summit in Helsinki, a meeting that saw both leaders warm up to each other.
Moscow and Kyiv fight for control
Moscow and Kyiv are seeking battlefield gains to strengthen their negotiating positions ahead of any prospective talks to end the war, which is nearing its third anniversary.
In the past year, Russian troops have slowly but steadily advanced through Ukrainian defences, seeking to establish full control of the four regions in the east and south that Moscow illegally annexed early in the war but never completely captured.
Moscow has also been launching waves of missiles and drones to try to cripple Ukraine’s energy network and other vital infrastructure.
Ukraine, in turn, has tried to secure and extend its incursion into Russia’s Kursk region, an unprecedented move it made in August last year, initially occupying almost 1,000 square kilometres of Russian territory.
After former US President Joe Biden permitted Ukraine to make use of American-made long-range weapons, Kyiv’s missiles and drones began to strike Russian oil facilities and other key targets important for Moscow’s war machine, prompting a revision for the use of nuclear weapons in the war by Putin.
So far, both sides have taken tough negotiating postures that leave little room for compromise. Putin has declared Moscow’s readiness for talks but has also emphasised that any peace deal should respect the “realities on the ground.”
In June, he said that Ukraine must also renounce its NATO bid and fully withdraw its forces from Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson, regions that Russia annexed in September 2022. Ukraine and the West have so far rejected this.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s initial “peace formula” demanded Russia’s full withdrawal from all occupied territories.
The Ukrainian president has faced reluctance from some allies to offer Kyiv quick membership in NATO. Still, he insists on strong security guarantees from the US and other Western partners as the key element of any prospective peace deal.
About a fifth of Ukrainian territory is currently controlled by Russia, including the Crimean Peninsula, which was annexed in 2014.
Moscow held the battlefield initiative for most of 2024, pressing offensives in several sections of the over 1,000-kilometre front line in gains that observers consider the largest since the invasion began.
Additional sources • AP
