Trump on Putin–Zelenskyy meeting: "I would prefer not to be present"
U.S. President Donald Trump said he would not want to take part in a potential meeting between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Russian dictator Vladimir Putin.
He stated that at a briefing at the White House, Censor.NET reports.
Trump compared Putin and Zelenskyy to "oil and vinegar," noting they "don't get along too well".
"We’ll see if Putin and Zelenskyy will work together […]. They don’t get along very well, for obvious reasons, but we’ll see. We’ll also see whether I will take part in the meeting. I would prefer not to be present. I’d rather arrange a meeting for them and see what they can do," Trump said.
The U.S. president also noted that the number of casualties in the war continues to rise:
"But in the meantime, they keep fighting and keep killing people, which is very senseless, because they are now losing 7,000 people. I previously told you five, and now they are losing 7,000 people a day, 7,000 people a week. They are losing, think about it, they are losing an average of 7,000 people a week, mostly soldiers. So we want, we want to see if we can stop this... I stopped seven wars. I would like to handle this one, which I thought would be in the middle in terms of difficulty, and it turns out to be the hardest."
His comments came after Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov stated that a meeting between Putin and Zelenskyy is not planned, as "the agenda is not ready at all."
