The incoming US president on Friday said preparations for a meeting with Russian leader were already underway.
, who has previously said he could end the “within 24 hours,” said details of the were still to be determined.
What the president-elect said
“President Putin wants to meet, he’s said that even publicly, and we have to get that war over with, that’s a bloody mess,” Trump said on Thursday.
During the electoral campaign, Trump has often celebrated , claiming he could end the war in Ukraine swiftly without ever revealing any details of how he would do that.
Earlier this week, Trump — who has long espoused his admiration for Putin — said he was optimistic that the war would end within six months.
“I hope long before six months,” he told reporters at his Florida Mar-a-Lago residence.
Trump claimed that soldiers were “being killed by the millions,” although he quickly revised the figure down to “hundreds of thousands.”
He suggested that the casualty figures from the war are “much higher than the press is reporting.”
The president-elect also mentioned buildings being flattened, adding: “When a building like that comes down and they say nobody was injured— no, no, a lot of people were killed.”
How the figures stack up
United Nations officials say Russian forces have killed at least 12,300 civilians in Ukraine. Meanwhile, several European media outlets put the number of Ukrainian soldiers killed at approximately 80,000.
In July 2024 — citing documents from the US Department of Defense —The Economist reported that between 462,000 and 728,000 Russian soldiers had been killed, injured, or captured by mid-June.
Trump has criticized US support for Ukraine and said Ukraine should have made concessions to Putin before Russia invaded in 2022. He also called the Russian leader “pretty smart” for invading Ukraine.
Kyiv is anxious that, when Trump takes office, US aid will be drastically reduced. In his New Year’s address, appealed to Washington not to cut aid to Ukraine.
rc/lo (dpa, AFP)
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