US President Donald Trump said he would soon meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin, while US Secretary of State Marco Rubio spoke of upcoming talks aimed at ending the Russia-Ukraine conflict.
US President Donald Trump said on February 16 that he could meet Russian President Vladimir Putin very soon. "No date set, but it could be very soon," Trump told reporters at Palm Beach International Airport in West Palm Beach, Florida, according to AFP.
President Trump: "Russia defeated Hitler, Napoleon," but Putin wants to end the Ukraine conflict
President Trump added that his team had “long and hard” talks with Russian officials. Trump said that US special envoy for the Middle East Steve Witkoff recently met with Putin for about three hours.
"I think he wants to stop the conflict," Trump said of Putin. Asked if he believed Putin wanted to take control of all of Ukraine, Trump replied: "That's my question for him. If he continues... that would cause me a big problem." Trump also said that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky also wanted to end the conflict.
US President Donald Trump speaks to reporters at Palm Beach International Airport in West Palm Beach, Florida, on February 16.
Bloomberg news agency on February 16 quoted a US official as saying that President Trump wants to get a ceasefire in the Russia-Ukraine conflict before Easter, which falls on April 20. Mr. Trump once declared that he would end the Russia-Ukraine conflict in just one day if he returned to the White House.
"Nothing has been finalized yet"
President Trump made the above new statement a few hours after US Secretary of State Marco Rubio sought to lower expectations about upcoming high-level talks with the Russian delegation in the Saudi Arabian capital Riyadh on ending the Russia-Ukraine conflict, as this conflict is about to turn 3 years old (February 24, 2022 - February 24, 2025).
Secretary of State Rubio will lead a high-level US team to Riyadh, but it is unclear whether Ukraine will be involved. Rubio said he was not even sure who Moscow would send. The talks in Riyadh are scheduled to begin on February 18, according to Russian newspaper Kommersant , citing sources.
Mr. Zelensky admitted that Ukraine 'would have difficulty surviving' without US military support.
“Nothing is finalized,” Mr. Rubio stressed, adding that the aim was to seek a start to a broader dialogue “that would include Ukraine and would involve ending the conflict.”
In an interview with CBS on February 16, Mr. Rubio said that the negotiation process has not started in earnest and that if the negotiations progress, Ukraine and other European countries will have to participate. Mr. Rubio made this statement a day after President Trump's special envoy for Ukraine, Mr. Keith Kellogg, said that Europe will have no place in the Russia-Ukraine peace talks, and that Russia and Ukraine will be the only two main parties, with the United States acting as a mediator.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio at an event in Washington DC on February 10.
Trump and Putin agreed to start ceasefire talks immediately when they spoke by phone on February 12. That call surprised NATO allies as well as Kyiv, with Zelensky stressing that “no decisions on Ukraine should be made without Ukraine,” according to Reuters. Zelensky had previously said Ukraine had not been invited to upcoming US-Russia talks in Riyadh.
In an interview with NBC News on February 16, President Zelensky outlined his vision for ending the conflict in Ukraine in cooperation with President Trump. Mr. Zelensky made it clear that he would never accept a peace deal negotiated by the US and Russia without Ukraine at the negotiating table.
"I will never accept any decision between the United States and Russia on Ukraine, never. This is a war in Ukraine, against us, and it is our human loss," Zelensky told NBC News' "Meet the Press" host Kristen Welker in the German city of Munich.
In the same interview, President Zelensky said he believed Russia was preparing to "go to war" against a weakened NATO if Trump reduced US support for the alliance. However, Trump appeared to downplay Zelensky's remarks, telling reporters he was "not even a little" concerned about the Ukrainian leader's message, according to AFP.
Kremlin states its stance
On the Russian side, in an interview with 1 TV channel broadcast on February 16, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the significance of the phone call between President Putin and President Trump on February 12 was that Russia and the US would now talk about peace, not war. "This is a strong signal that we will try to solve problems through dialogue. Now we will talk about peace, not war," Mr. Peskov told Kremlin state television reporter Pavel Zarubin in a clip released on February 16, according to Reuters.
In the same interview, Peskov also said that Russia would need to take Ukraine's lack of independence into account in any future negotiations. Since Kyiv has in the past reneged on its promises at the request of other countries, Peskov argued, Moscow would need to take this lack of autonomy into account in any future negotiations, according to RT. The Kremlin spokesman cited the failed 2014-2015 Minsk agreements and the failed talks between Moscow and Kyiv in Istanbul in 2022, after Russia launched a military operation in Ukraine on February 24, 2022.
Moscow has ruled out any interim solution similar to the Minsk agreements, insisting on a long-term legally binding solution that addresses the core causes of the conflict. Any such solution would need to be based on the points previously agreed in Istanbul, adjusted to the “reality on the ground” of the territory, according to the statement from the Russian side, according to RT.
Source: https://thanhnien.vn/phia-ong-trump-gui-thong-diep-moi-toi-nga-ukraine-chau-au-185250217080133005.htm
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