Donald Trump has enthusiastically announced that he is setting up a meeting with Vladimir Putin – but the Kremlin are staying pretty aloof over the matter.
Speaking to reporters on Thursday from his resort in Florida, the US president-elect said Putin “wants to meet, and we are setting it up”.
He added: “He [Putin] has said that even publicly and we have to get that war over with. That’s a bloody mess.”
The Republican has pledged to end the Russia-Ukraine war on his first day in office although he has not said how he would do so, sparking fears he may pressure Kyiv into giving occupied territory to Moscow.
Trump, who once praised Putin’s invasion as “savvy” and “genius”, is also expected to be much more sympathetic to the Kremlin than most of Ukraine’s other allies.
But the Russian president’s team appear to be playing it cool when it comes to Trump.
Putin’s spokesperson suggested holding off on any meeting until Trump is officially inaugurated for his second term on January 20 – and put the Republican in the same category as other “international leaders”.
According to Russian state news agency TASS, Kremlin’s press secretary Dmitry Peskov said: “Moscow has repeatedly declared its openness to contacts with international leaders, including the US president, including Donald Trump.”
Emphasising that “no special conditions” are needed for such a meeting with Putin, Peskov continued: “What is required is a mutual desire and political will to conduct dialogue and resolve existing problems through dialogue.
“We see that Mr Trump also declares his readiness to resolve problems through dialogue. We welcome this.
“There are still no specifics, we proceed from the mutual readiness for the meeting.”
Peskov also denied claims Putin was planning on meeting Trump – or German chancellor Olaf Scholz – on January 5.
Trump, meanwhile, hinted earlier this week not only that he believes it was the US – and specifically Joe Biden – who were responsible for the Ukraine war, but revealed he wants to meet Putin “long before six months” after his inauguration.
Before Trump won November’s election, there were also reports that Putin and the Republican had spoken over the phone only multiple occasions.
Journalist Bob Woodward claimed in his book War that, according to a former White House aide, that they may have spoken “as many as seven in the period since Trump left the White House in 2021”.
Putin wrote off the claims as “nonsense” and Trump’s team said the claims were completely fabricated.
But Trump himself responded to the allegations by saying: “Well, I don’t comment on that, but I will tell you that if I did, it’s a smart thing.
“If I’m friendly with people, if I have a relationship with people, that’s a good thing, not a bad thing, in terms of a country. He’s got 2,000 nuclear weapons, and so do we.”