MOSCOW: Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday he was ready to reach a compromise on Ukraine in possible talks with US President-elect Donald Trump on ending the war and had no conditions to start talks with the Ukrainian authorities.
Putin, answering questions on state television during his annual question-and-answer session with Russians, told a reporter from a U.S. news channel that he was ready to meet with Trump, whom he said he had not spoken to for years.
Asked what he could offer Trump, Putin dismissed the claim that Russia was in a weak position and said Moscow had become much stronger since it ordered troops into Ukraine in 2022.
“We have always said that we are ready for negotiations and compromises,” Putin said, after saying that Russian forces, advancing along the entire front, were moving toward achieving their main objectives in Ukraine.
Putin ruled out the idea of agreeing a temporary truce with kyiv, saying only a lasting peace deal with Ukraine would be enough.
Any talks should take as a starting point a preliminary agreement reached between Russian and Ukrainian negotiators in the first weeks of the war at talks in Istanbul, which was never implemented, he added.
“Soon, the Ukrainians who want to fight will run out; in my opinion, soon there will be no one left who wants to fight. We are prepared, but the other side must be prepared for both negotiations and compromises,” he said. .
Trump, a self-proclaimed master of deal-brokering and author of the 1987 book “Trump: the Art of the Deal,” has promised to quickly end the conflict but has yet to provide any details on how he might do so.
Reuters reported last month that Putin was open to discussing a ceasefire deal in Ukraine with Trump, but ruled out making major territorial concessions and insisted that kyiv abandon its ambitions to join NATO.
Putin said on Thursday that Russia was not in a position to start talks with Ukraine and was willing to negotiate with anyone, including President Volodymyr Zelenskiy.
But he said any deal could only be signed with Ukraine's legitimate authorities, which for now the Kremlin considers to be just the Ukrainian parliament.
Zelenskiy, whose term technically expired but who delayed an election because of the war, would need to be re-elected for Moscow to consider him a legitimate signatory to any deal to ensure it is legally airtight, Putin said.
Some Ukrainian politicians consider that draft agreement to be akin to a capitulation that would have neutralized Ukraine's military and political ambitions.
