President Donald Trump said he would meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenksyy in the coming weeks ‘if necessary.’
The president’s comments come just after he condemned Russia’s recent large-scale strike against Ukraine.
Russian forces launched hundreds of drones and missiles at Ukrainian cities overnight Sunday. The attack, which has been called the largest aerial attack of the war so far, targeted the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv.
Ukrainian officials said that at least 12 people were killed and dozens more were injured.
Though past strikes have proven more deadly, the attack is the largest-scale aerial assault of the war in terms of the number of weapons: 298 drones and 69 missiles were launched.
The president on Wednesday was asked if he believes Putin actually wants to end the war with Ukraine, to which Trump replied: ‘I can’t tell you that, but I’ll let you know in about two weeks.’
‘Within two weeks, we’re going to find out whether or not he’s tapping us along or not,’ Trump told reporters at the Oval Office during a swearing-in ceremony for Jeanine Pirro as interim U.S. attorney. ‘And if he is, we will respond a little bit differently.’
Trump said his special envoy for the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, is ‘doing a phenomenal job’ and ‘dealing with them very strongly right now.’
‘They seem to want to do something,’ Trump said.
But Trump again condemned Russia’s attack, saying he is ‘very disappointed at what happened a couple of nights now where people were killed — in what you would call a negotiation.’
‘I’m very disappointed by that,’ Trump said. ‘Very, very disappointing.’
Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has expressed a willingness to sit down again with Trump and with Putin in Geneva.
When asked if he was planning to sit down with Putin and Zelenskyy, Trump said he would be willing.
‘Well, if it’s necessary… we have to, I think at this point. I wish you would have been that way a couple of months ago, but at this point, we’re working on President Putin, and we’ll see where we are,’ Trump said. ‘I think we’re doing fine, but we’ll see.’
Special Envoy Keith Kellogg is preparing for possible talks in Geneva, though it remains unclear when they will be held. Russia has yet to agree to the U.S.’s peace proposal, and its foreign ministry Tuesday claimed it was still working on its memorandum of terms.
Russia has suggested a possible meeting in Istabul, Turkey.
Meanwhile, the president again on Wednesday said: ‘I don’t like what’s happening. It’s one thing I’ll say — I don’t like when I see rockets being shot into cities. That’s no good. We’re not going to allow it.’
The president, over the weekend, blasted Putin, saying he is ‘killing a lot of people.’
‘I don’t know what the hell happened to Putin,’ he said over the weekend. ‘I’ve known him a long time, always gotten along with him, but he’s sending rockets into cities and killing people, and I don’t like it at all.’
In a post on Telegram, Zelenskyy called for an international response to the attack.
‘The silence of America, the silence of others in the world only encourages Putin,’ he wrote on Telegram. ‘Every such terrorist Russian strike is reason enough for new sanctions against Russia.’
Trump expanded on his comments later Sunday, writing on Truth Social that Putin ‘has gone absolutely CRAZY!’ while also criticizing Zelenskyy.
‘I’ve always said that (Putin) wants ALL of Ukraine, not just a piece of it, and maybe that’s proving to be right, but if he does, it will lead to the downfall of Russia!’ the social media post read. ‘Likewise, President Zelenskyy is doing his Country no favors by talking the way he does. Everything out of his mouth causes problems, I don’t like it, and it better stop.’
‘This is a War that would never have started if I were President,’ Trump concluded. ‘This is Zelenskyy’s, Putin’s, and Biden’s War, not ‘Trump’s,’ I am only helping to put out the big and ugly fires, that have been started through Gross Incompetence and Hatred.’