Putin is ready to meet with Trump: Yermak responds to his statement

Vladimir Putin. Photo: Getty Images

Russian President Vladimir Putin has expressed a desire to meet with US President Donald Trump to discuss issues that he believes are of interest to both countries.

He said this today, 24 January, on the Russian state television channel «Russia 24».

«It is probably better for us to meet based on the realities of today, to talk calmly about all those areas that are of interest to both the United States and Russia. We are ready. But this primarily depends on the decisions and choices of the current US administration», he said.

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According to him, he and Trump have always had «business and pragmatic relations».

«I cannot but agree with him that if he had been president and his victory had not been stolen from him in 2020, then perhaps there would not have been the crisis in Ukraine that arose in 2022,» the Russian president said.

In the context of the possibility of negotiating an end to the war, Putin mentioned Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's decree banning negotiations with Russia, saying that international partners should force Kyiv to cancel this document if they want to end the war.

«How can negotiations be resumed now if they are banned? If negotiations start within the current regulatory framework, they will be illegitimate, which means that the results of these negotiations can be declared illegitimate», he said.

Later, the head of the Office of the President of Ukraine, Andrii Yermak , responded to his words. He is convinced that Putin is trying to promote the idea of negotiations between Russia and the United States without Ukraine's participation.

«Putin is trying to promote the idea of negotiations with the United States. But he has a condition: he wants to negotiate the fate of Europe — without Europe. And he wants to talk about Ukraine without Ukraine. This is not going to happen. Putin needs to come back to reality himself, or he will be brought back. This is not how it works in the modern world», he wrote.

Earlier, Moscow said that Russian President Vladimir Putin is ready to contact US President Donald Trump. The Kremlin «is waiting for a signal».