Trump seeks Putin meeting as Biden announces aid package to Kyiv

President-elect Donald Trump floated the possibility of a meeting with Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin to end the “bloody mess” in Ukraine, while the outgoing administration of Joe Biden pushed through its final aid package for battered ally Kyiv.

“He wants to meet and … we’re setting it up,” Trump said during a Thursday press conference, noting he would rather hold off on the encounter until after his presidential inauguration on Jan. 20. It has yet to be decided whether the meeting will take place as a summit or state visit.

“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.

Trump has historically enjoyed a more cordial relationship with Putin than many Western heads of state, who have increasingly distanced themselves from the Kremlin since Moscow’s February 2022 invasion of its Eastern European neighbor.

The strength of Trump’s relationship with Putin came under the scrutiny of a nearly two-year special counsel investigation into claims of Russian interference in the 2016 elections. Trump, who clinched victory in the vote, denied claims that he had fallen under the Kremlin’s influence.

Putin is ready to meet Trump without reservations, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Friday in Google-translated comments reported by Russian state news agency Tass. He added that the specifics of such a rapprochement had yet to be agreed and will likely pend Trump’s inauguration, noting that Russia welcomes the president-elect’s intentions to fall back on dialogue.

Western-led efforts to mediate a peace arrangement, along with the respective frameworks of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and influential Chinese mediator Xi Jinping, have yet to be mutually accepted or bear fruit. Moscow and Kyiv have so far set down mutually contradictory red lines, refusing to join the negotiations table unless they are allowed to retain annexed territories or until Russian troops have departed Ukrainian land, respectively.

Trump’s openness to liaise with Putin marks a departure from the relationship guided over the past two years by the administration of Biden, a staunch supporter of Ukraine throughout the conflict.

Biden’s government has committed roughly $65.9 billion in security assistance to Kyiv since the start of the invasion as of Jan. 8. On Thursday, the U.S. Department of Defense announced a $500 million aid tranche for Ukraine, a mere 10 days before Biden’s scheduled exit from the White House.

Questions linger over the extent of U.S. involvement in the devastating war in Ukraine, which enters its third year next month and has indirectly propelled spikes in energy prices and global inflation because of Western sanctions on Russian resources. Trump has previously touted he could resolve the devastating war in Ukraine in an ambitious “24 hours” deadline, without disclosing his methods or presenting a concrete ceasefire proposal.

He has also vehemently criticized America’s expenses to shore up Ukraine’s defenses, questioned the U.S.’ ongoing participation in the NATO military alliance, and once dubbed Zelenskyy as “maybe the greatest salesman of any politician that’s ever lived,” in an allusion that aid delivered to Ukraine was the result of the Ukrainian leader’s political prowess, more than his country’s actual needs.

Altogether, Trump’s comments and fledgling indications of trade nationalism have raised broader concerns that potential White House pressures or the withdrawal of U.S. military support could cajole a resource-dependent Kyiv into a diplomatic denouement involving territorial concessions to its invader.

Ukraine expects a Trump-Zelenskyy meeting to take place shortly after the U.S. president-elect takes office, ministry spokesman Heorhii Tykhyi said Friday, according to Reuters.

Correction: On Thursday, the U.S. Department of Defense announced a $500 million aid tranche for Ukraine. An earlier version misstated the figure.