Former President of the United States Donald Trump thinks that negotiations between Ukraine and Russia are necessary.
“It doesn’t make sense that Russia and Ukraine aren’t sitting down and working out some kind of an agreement,” The Hill, a US-based newspaper, quoted the former US commander-in-chief as saying.
After the start of the Russian special operation in Ukraine, Trump called Russian leader Vladimir Putin “smarter” than the American leadership and “has played” the current President of the United States, Joe Biden, “like a drum”. Regarding the current crisis in Ukraine, Trump asserted that had he been “in office <…> this would have never happened.”
On February 24, Putin announced a special military operation in response to a request for help by the heads of the Donbass republics. He stressed that Moscow had no plans of occupying Ukrainian territories, but aimed to demilitarize and denazify the country. In turn, the Russian Defense Ministry assured that Russian soldiers don’t attack any cities, but only disable military infrastructure, so there is no threat to civilians.
Russian-Ukrainian talks have been held since February 28, with the Moscow delegation headed by Presidential Aide Vladimir Medinsky. Several meetings were held in Belarus, and then the sides continued communicating via video-link. On March 29, a face-to-face round of negotiations took place in Istanbul.
Last week, Putin told journalists that Kiev, having walked away from the agreements reached during negotiations in Istanbul, had sent the process into a stalemate.
According to Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov, Kiev often changes its position on already agreed issues. Peskov commented on Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky’s statement that Kiev would be ready to discuss Crimea’s status and its refusal to join NATO if Moscow withdrew its troops from Ukrainian soil.
