The incoming US president has refused to comment on whether any contact with the Kremlin has already taken place.
US President-elect Donald Trump has said that he will speak to both Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky in a bid to stop the “carnage” between Moscow and Kiev.
During a press conference at his Mar-a-Lago estate on Monday, Trump refused to comment when asked whether he had spoken to Putin since he won last month’s presidential election. However, Trump said that he intends to do so.
“We’ll be talking to President Putin and we’ll be talking to the representatives, Zelensky and representatives from Ukraine,” he said. “We’ve got to stop it. It’s carnage,” he added, referring to the almost three-year conflict between Russia and Ukraine.
“It’s a carnage that we haven’t seen since the Second World War,” he continued. “It’s got to be stopped. And I’m doing my best to stop [it].”
Trump vowed on the campaign trail to end the conflict within a day of taking office, although he has since admitted that doing this may be “more difficult” than he previously thought. The incoming president met with Zelensky in Paris earlier this month, and said immediately after last month’s election that he will likely speak to Putin in the near future.
Trump and his prospective cabinet officials have refused to comment on media reports claiming that they have been in contact with Moscow, while the Kremlin last month denied a report by the Washington Post suggesting that Trump reached out to Putin by phone immediately after the election.
Putin has said that Trump’s statements on ending the conflict “deserve attention,” and that he is open to talks with the president-elect. “It wouldn’t be beneath me to call him myself,” the Russian president said at a meeting of the Valdai International Discussion Club in Sochi last month.
As Trump has not revealed any details on the kind of settlement he intends to propose to Putin and Zelensky, his plans have remained the subject of media speculation. Most American news outlets have predicted that Trump will push for the conflict to be frozen along the current line of contact, with Ukraine abandoning its aspirations of NATO membership in exchange for security guarantees from the West.
Trump has explicitly said that the US will leave the enforcement of such a deal up to NATO’s European members.
Moscow maintains that any settlement must begin with Ukraine ceasing military operations and acknowledging the “territorial reality” that it will never regain control of the regions of Donetsk, Lugansk, Kherson, and Zaporozhye, as well as Crimea. In addition, the Kremlin insists that the goals of its military operation – which include Ukrainian neutrality, demilitarization, and denazification – will be achieved.
