President-elect Donald Trump is reportedly in the process of setting up meetings with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping.
During a press conference at Mar-a-Lago, Trump told reporters Putin “wants to meet” and that “we’re setting it up.”
The president-elect also indicated that his team has had “a lot of communication” with President Xi and that he wished to wait until after he is inaugurated to follow through with discussions.
“We have to get that war over,” Trump said, referring to the military conflict between Russia and Ukraine.
VERY interesting 👀
— Clandestine (@WarClandestine) January 10, 2025
Trump says he is setting up meetings with Putin and Xi!
Then Doocy brings up the potential of a “summit” with all 3 leaders, and Trump says that is still to be determined, and that his priority is getting the war stopped.
WW3 is about to be canceled! pic.twitter.com/U1oUSsIb6P
Gen. Keith Kellogg, who will be Trump’s special envoy for Ukraine and Russia, said the plan is to end the war within 100 days of taking office.
Kellogg described the war as "carnage" but said he was confident that Trump can end the war in the "near term."
The retired three-star general told Fox News' "America Reports" on Thursday that he and Trump are going to make sure the cease-fire agreement is "fair" and "equitable," though he did not detail what this means as far as withdrawing Russian forces from Ukraine’s internationally recognized borders.
The president-elect has not divulged exactly how he plans to end the conflict. However, during another press conference on Thursday, he acknowledged Putin’s concerns about Ukraine joining NATO.
When asked about the war between Russia and Ukraine, Trump highlighted that the primary point of contention when it comes to potential peace talks is the role NATO might play. “[Russian President Vladimir] Putin said you could never have NATO involved with Ukraine,” Trump said.
He continued, noting that Biden said, “No, they should be able to join NATO” and that Trump “could understand their feeling about that.” The president-elect explained that “there were a lot of mistakes made in that negotiation” and that when he heard how Biden was handling the discussions, “I said: ‘You’re going to end up in a war,’ and it turned out to be a very bad war, and it could escalate.”
For his part, Putin on Friday affirmed that he is open to meeting with Trump after the inauguration. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Friday that the Russian president “has repeatedly stated his openness to contacts with international leaders, including the U.S. president, including Donald Trump, The Washington Post reported.
“What is required is a mutual desire and political will to dialogue and to solve existing problems through dialogue,” Peskov said. “We see that Mr. Trump is declaring his readiness to solve problems through dialogue. We welcome that.”
Ukraine’s leadership is also looking forward to meeting with Trump’s team.
Kyiv has been making overtures to the Trump circle to better grasp the incoming president’s campaign promises to quickly end the war in Ukraine.
“We are waiting for a meeting between our presidents because for us the main thing is to work together with America … we are preparing for contacts at the highest and high levels immediately after the inauguration,” spokesman Heorhii Tykhyi told reporters at a briefing in Kyiv.
So far, about 500,000 Ukrainian and Russian military personnel have been killed during the fighting. Over 26,000 civilians have also perished.