Putin believes Trump is serious about ending the Ukraine war

ASTANA (Reuters) – Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday he believed Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump was serious about his desire to end the war in Ukraine, but he did not know how Trump would achieve that if elected.

Putin commented at a press conference in Kazakhstan at the end of a regional security conference on Trump’s comments that he could quickly end the war in Ukraine if he won the White House election on November 5.

“We take the fact that Mr Trump, as a presidential candidate, declares that he is ready and wants to end the war in Ukraine very seriously,” Putin said.

“Of course, I don’t know the possible proposals as to how he wants to achieve this. That is the crucial question. But I have no doubt that he is serious and we support it (the idea of ​​ending the war).”

The Washington Post reported in April that Trump had raised the possibility of giving Putin Crimea – which Moscow annexed from Ukraine in 2014 – and the Donbass region, which is partly controlled by Russian forces, in confidential talks in return for peace. However, Trump’s campaign team has not confirmed this.

Two key advisers to Trump presented him with a plan to end the war that includes telling Ukraine that it would only receive more U.S. weapons if it participated in peace talks, Reuters reported last month.

Putin said last month that Russia would only end the war if Kiev gave up its NATO ambitions and handed over all four provinces claimed by Moscow. Kiev immediately rejected that demand, saying it amounted to capitulation.

Putin said a constructive dialogue between Moscow and Washington was impossible during the heated US presidential election campaign. Moscow would wait for the outcome and see what the new leadership does.

When asked what he thought of the first televised debate between Trump and President Joe Biden, Putin said he had seen fragments.

Putin has repeatedly expressed his preference for Biden as Russia’s next US president over Trump, even after Biden called the Kremlin chief a “crazy bastard,” although some of his remarks were ambiguous.

Asked whether his publicly expressed preference for Biden had changed after the debate, Putin said on Thursday: “Nothing has changed. Didn’t we know what could happen? We knew.”

“I have seen some fragments,” Putin said. “But I have enough to do.”

Biden, 81, gave a rocky performance during the debate, bringing questions about his age and mental fitness to the forefront of the campaign.

Putin said he paid little attention to the media’s partial coverage of the debate, but could not ignore it because the United States remained a major power.

(Written by Andrew Osborn and Guy Faulconbridge, Vladimir Soldatkin and Dmitry Antonov; edited by Angus MacSwan)