Putin: ‘Intelligent’ Trump will find solution to Ukraine warDaniel Hardaker Nov. 28, 2024
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Vladimir Putin has praised Donald Trump as an “intelligent” man who “will find a solution” to the war in Ukraine.
Speaking at a security summit in Kazakhstan on Thursday, Putin said he was ready for peace talks with Ukraine “without preconditions”, but on the same terms he laid out over the summer.
The Russian president said in June he would end the warif Kyiv agreed to drop its Nato ambitions and hand over four Ukrainian regions claimed by Moscow.Ukraine has rejected this proposal as tantamount to surrender.
According to The Washington Post, Putin and Mr Trump have spoken about the future of Ukraine since the Nov 5 US election. (WAPO made up this story and they are sticking to it)
Mr Trump was said to have warned the Russian leader during a phone call not to escalate the war and expressed an interest in a follow-up conversation.
The incoming US president is understood to be working on several proposals to end the war. According to three Trump staffers, one of these plans could see European and British troops called on to enforce an 800-mile buffer zone between the Russian and Ukrainian armies.
The current front line would be frozen in place and Ukraine would agree to shelve its ambition to join Nato for 20 years.In exchange, the US would pump Ukraine full of weapons to deter Russia from restarting the war.
The US would neither contribute troops to patrol and enforce the resulting buffer zone nor finance its mission.
Putin also on Thursday expressed concern for Mr Trump’s safety after attempts on his life during the US election campaign.
The Kremlin launched a massive overnight attack on Wednesday on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure in what it said was revenge for Kyiv’s Storm Shadow and Atacms missile strikes on Russia.
More than a million people were left without power, Ukrainian officials said, after Russia fired about 90 missiles and 100 drones at targets across the country.
Putin later threatened to devastate Kyiv with Russia’s new Oreshnik missile, which was first launched at the city of Dnipro last week. The Oreshnik is an intermediate range ballistic missile with multiple warheads and is thought to be nuclear capable.
Moscow has so far largely avoided Ukrainian government buildings in Kyiv, but said that it was now considering hitting “decision-making centres” in the Ukrainian capital. Putin claimed that an attack using several Oreshniks“would be comparable to the use of nuclear weapons”.
He hinted that he would be prepared to use nuclear weapons against Ukraine if the West were to give Kyiv its own weapons of mass destruction.“If the country which we are essentially at war with now becomes a nuclear power, what do we do?”Putin said.
“In this case, we will use all, I want to emphasise this, precisely all means of destruction available to Russia,” he added. The New York Times reported last week that some unidentified Western officials suggested Joe Biden, the US president, could give Ukraine nuclear weapons before he leaves office.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/putin-intelligent-trump-solution-ukraine-182649777.html