A potential meeting between US President Donald Trump and Russian leader Vladimir Putin “will largely depend on whether we can make any progress on ending the war in Ukraine,” says US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, according to Reuters.
On 12 February, Trump announced the start of negotiations with Moscow to end Russia’s war in Ukraine, following calls with Russian ruler Vladimir Putin. His statement triggered a wave of criticism, as experts warned that it could be a ceasefire on Putin’s terms with a lack of security guarantees for Ukraine, especially after US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth called Ukraine’s NATO membership aspirations “unrealistic.” This conversation also stirred concerns in Europe, as its representatives were not involved in the negotiations. Amid uncertainty about whether the US will lead to a weakening of NATO due to its increasingly isolationist stance, many media outlets and analysts have labeled this strategy as a victory for Russia.
Rubio revealed that he discussed the possibility of such a meeting during talks with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in Saudi Arabia. He told Lavrov and other Russian officials: “There isn’t going to be a meeting until we know what the meeting is going to be about.”
“So I think when that meeting happens will largely depend on whether we can make any progress on ending the war in Ukraine, and if we can, and that meeting is what seals the deal, I think everybody should celebrate that President Trump is a peacemaker,” he said.
This week, at the talks in Saudi Arabia, Russia and the US agreed to establish teams to negotiate a way to end the war that began when Russia attacked Ukraine in February 2022, Radio Free Europe Radio Liberty has reported. Recently, Putin and Trump have said they want to hold a summit.
Earlier, the report said that Trump wanted to get rid of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, whom he does not like, by pushing to hold presidential elections in Ukraine without security guarantees and at risk of establishing a pro-Russian “puppet” as a head of the state.
Trump called Zelenskyy a “dictator without elections” and accused Ukraine of starting the war with Russia.
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