In an interview with Russian state television Friday, Russian President Vladimir Putin praised U.S. President Donald Trump, calling him a “clever and pragmatic man,” and signaled a willingness to negotiate on a variety of issues.
He also seemingly agreed with Trump that the war in Ukraine might not have ever started if Trump had stayed in office in 2020 and Joe Biden hadn’t come along to royally screw things up.
“We always had a business-like, pragmatic but also trusting relationship with the current U.S. president,” Putin said. “I couldn’t disagree with him that if he had been president, if they hadn’t stolen victory from him in 2020, the crisis that emerged in Ukraine in 2022 could have been avoided.”
Putin’s statement was his bluntest endorsement yet of Trump’s refusal to accept his defeat in the 2020 election.
Two things come to mind about the above statement—1) Putin is trying to suck up to Trump, and 2) He’s certainly not above trying to sow division in the United States and knows very well that the 2020 election still causes emotions to run high.
Watch:
JUST IN: 🇷🇺🇺🇸 Russian President Putin says if the 2020 US presidency wasn’t “stolen” from Donald Trump, the Ukrainian crisis would have never appeared. pic.twitter.com/55YGJ4aVis
— BRICS News (@BRICSinfo) January 24, 2025
Trump has long maintained that war wouldn’t have broken out if he’d served consecutive terms, and on the campaign trail, he vowed to ensure the conflict’s end if he were to re-take the Oval Office.
Trump also has said repeatedly he wouldn’t have allowed the conflict to start if he had been in office, even though he was president as fighting grew in the east of the country between Kyiv’s forces and separatists aligned with Moscow, ahead of Putin sending in tens of thousands of troops in 2022.
Previously: President Trump Warns Putin to End Ukraine War ‘the Easy Way or the Hard Way’
Putin Signals Willingness to Talk… With Trump. Not Biden.
Putin is a very dangerous man, and nothing he says can be trusted or taken at face value—he has proven that over and over (and over). That being said, he is also shrewd and has managed to stay at the pinnacles of Russian power since 1999. If he sees an opportunity to benefit himself, he can be counted on to take it, and if Trump’s re-ascendence might give him a chance to find a face-saving offramp to the costly and extremely deadly war—which he started—and he may be of a mind to take advantage.
He’s doubtless worried about possible crippling sanctions now that the feckless Biden regime has finally faded into the depths of history:
He also said the U.S. and Russia have many other items on their agenda, including nuclear arms control and economic issues.
“We can have quite a lot of points of contact with the current administration and search for solutions to key issues of today,” Putin said.
He said the sanctions against Russia introduced during Trump’s first term and under Joe Biden’s administration had hurt U.S. interests, undermining the dollar’s role in global financial system. [Nice try, but I’m guessing they hurt Russia a lot more than they hurt us.]
Trump has made no secret about what he will do if things are allowed to continue as they have been—he will punish the Federation:
On Wednesday, Trump threatened to impose stiff tariffs and sanctions on Russia if an agreement isn’t reached to end the fighting in Ukraine.
Peskov said the Kremlin was closely following Trump’s statements and noted he imposed a slew of sanctions in his first term. He said Moscow “remains ready for an equal dialogue, for a mutually respectful dialogue.”
“This dialogue took place between the two presidents during Trump’s first presidency. And we are waiting for signals that we have not received yet,” Peskov said.
We shall see if there is actually reason to be optimistic about a deal to end a war that has cost hundreds of thousands of lives. As ruthless as Putin is, he may just see it’s in his interests to figure it out now, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy may be willing to make some concessions. The American taxpayer would certainly like to see it end, seeing as we’ve sent at least $175 billion to support Ukraine—money that could have been used to better our lives here at home.
