The US president, who has repeatedly vowed to swiftly end the Ukraine conflict, made the remarks in an interview with the paper aboard Air Force One on Friday, which was only published the next day. The NY Post, however, hasn’t provided any quotes from the alleged phone call in its interview with Trump.
When asked how many times he had been in contact with Putin, he noted “I’d better not say.” The US president told the paper that he believed his counterpart wanted a cessation of hostilities.
“He wants to see people stop dying,” Trump continued, adding, “All those dead people. Young, young, beautiful people. They’re like your kids, two million of them – and for no reason.”
It is unclear from what data he derived the exact figure, and what timeframe he was referring to.
According to the NY Post, he delivered the remarks while accompanied by National Security Adviser Mike Waltz. While addressing him, he noted “Let’s get these meetings going. They want to meet. Every day people are dying,” the report said.
Trump has repeatedly stressed he wanted to meet with Putin to discuss the settlement of the Ukraine crisis.
Moscow has announced it is open to talks, with Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov confirming on Wednesday that Russia and the US have had contacts “between individual departments,” and that they have recently “intensified,” without providing further details.
The US president added that he “always had a good relationship with Putin,” asserting that if had been president in 2022, he would have prevented the Ukraine conflict altogether while blaming his predecessor Joe Biden for allowing hostilities.
While the US president has not publicly revealed his peace plan, it reportedly involves the freezing of the conflict along the current front line, establishing a demilitarized zone patrolled by European soldiers, and suspending Ukraine from joining NATO.
Russia has ruled out the freezing of the conflict, stressing that any potential settlement must recognize “territorial reality on the ground” and see Kiev commit to permanent neutrality, demilitarization and denazification.
