Vladimir Putin is ready to discuss the war in Ukraine with President-elect Donald Trump, but emphasized that Russia is unwilling to make any concessions, The Kremlin said on Friday.
"The president has never said that the goals of the special military operation are changing. On the contrary, he has repeatedly said that they remain the same," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters when asked if Putin's willingness to talk to Trump signals a change in demands.
"All this concerns the security interests of our country, the security interests of the Russian people living there. Therefore, there was no talk of any changes here," Peskov said, Reuters reported.
Putin laid out his terms for an end to the nearly three-year-old war this summer, demanding that Ukraine end its NATO ambitions and withdraw troops from four areas claimed by Russia.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has rejected those conditions, equating them to capitulation.
Trump on the campaign trail boasted that he could end the war in Ukraine in 24 hours without providing specifics and has been critical of NATO and even floated withdrawing the United States from the alliance.
Zelensky said Thursday it would be "suicidal" for Europe to offer Moscow any concessions to halt its invasion of Ukraine.
"There has been much talk about the need to yield to Putin, to back down, to make some concessions," Zelensky told leaders at the European Union summit in Hungary.
"It's unacceptable for Ukraine and suicidal for all Europe," he continued.
But Hungarian President Viktor Orban, who is hosting the meetings in Budapest and an ally to both Trump and Putin, told the assembled leaders on Friday that Trump will end sending military aid to Ukraine.
"If Donald Trump had won in 2020 in the United States, these two nightmarish years wouldn't have happened. There wouldn't have been a war," Orban said, the Associated Press reported. "The situation on the front is obvious, there's been a military defeat. The Americans are going to pull out of this war."
Western aid is critical for Ukraine to continue fighting the war against Russia.
Initially published in International Business Times
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