President Donald Trump said Thursday that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is ready to negotiate a deal to end the war with Russia, adding that Russian President Vladimir Putin would like to meet soon.
Trump spoke to reporters after signing multiple executive orders Thursday afternoon in the Oval Office. When a reporter asked if Zelenskyy told him he was ready to negotiate a solution to the war with Russia, Trump provided confirmation.
“Yes, he’s ready to negotiate a deal. He’d like to stop this,” Trump said. “He’s somebody that lost a lot of soldiers, and so did Russia. … Russia lost more soldiers. They lost 800,000. Would you say that’s a lot? I’d say it’s a lot.”
He was also asked if sanctions on Russia would force Putin to negotiate.
“I don’t know, but I think he should make a deal,” Trump said.
Trump also told reporters Chinese President Xi Jinping could have an influence on the war between Russia and Ukraine since it has power over Russia. He explained that the two countries are big trading partners.
Russia, Trump noted, supplies China with a lot of energy, and the latter pays the former a lot of money.
“I think they have a lot of power over Russia, so I think Russia should want to make a deal,” Trump said. “From what I hear, Putin would like to see me, and we’ll meet as soon as we can.”
When he described the war in Ukraine, Trump said soldiers were being killed on a battlefield that “is like no battlefield since World War II.”
“Soldiers are being killed on a daily basis at numbers that we haven’t seen in decades,” he said. “It would be nice to end that war. It’s a ridiculous war.”
Putin is reportedly worried about the state of his country’s economy as Trump returns to the Oval Office. According to a Reuters report citing various sources, Trump’s push to end the war in Ukraine is only adding to Putin’s concerns.
Throughout his campaign, Trump pushed to end world conflicts, including the Russia-Ukraine war, which began with Putin’s 2022 invasion.
Last month, Putin said he was ready to compromise over Ukraine in possible talks with Trump on ending the war and had no conditions for starting talks with Ukrainian authorities.
“We have always said that we are ready for negotiations and compromises,” Putin said at the time, after saying that Russian forces, advancing across the entire front, were moving toward achieving their primary goals in Ukraine.
“In my opinion, soon there will be no one left who wants to fight. We are ready, but the other side needs to be ready for both negotiations and compromises.”
Fox News Digital’s Rachel Wolf contributed to this report.
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