During a meeting with Russia’s Security Council on Monday, Vladimir Putin expressed appreciation for the new U.S. administration’s intentions to restore direct communication with Russia. He acknowledged President Donald Trump’s commitment to reestablishing contact as a positive shift, particularly after a period of disrupted dialogue.
Putin stated that Russia values the newly elected president’s willingness to renew ties that had been severed by the previous U.S. administration, emphasizing the importance of dialogue to avoid the risk of global conflict. He welcomed Trump’s stance on preventing a third world war, noting the president’s promise to take all necessary measures to ensure peace.
“We’ve noted the newly elected U.S. president and his team’s desire to restore communication with Russia, a process interrupted through no fault of ours by the outgoing administration,” Putin remarked. “We also appreciate the president’s focus on preventing a third world war, and we congratulate him on taking office.”
Putin also expressed his readiness to engage in discussions on the ongoing Ukraine conflict, though peace remains elusive despite Trump’s promises to broker a deal.
Ahead of his inauguration, Trump indicated plans to meet with Putin, stating publicly that the Russian leader was eager for a conversation. “President Putin wants to meet, and we need to end this war,” Trump said on January 9th.
Trump and Putin had previously met one-on-one in Helsinki in 2018, a summit where both leaders seemed to warm to one another.
As the war approaches its third year, both Moscow and Kyiv are vying for strategic gains on the battlefield to strengthen their positions for future negotiations. Russian forces have gradually pushed through Ukrainian defenses, aiming to solidify control of regions in the east and south that Russia annexed early in the war but never fully secured.
Meanwhile, Moscow has continued its barrage of missiles and drones targeting Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, while Ukraine has launched bold offensives into Russia’s Kursk region, seizing nearly 1,000 square kilometers of Russian land last August.
Ukrainian forces have also benefitted from the U.S. providing long-range weapons, allowing them to strike critical Russian facilities, including oil installations, which have become key targets in Moscow’s war effort.
Despite both sides taking hardline positions, leaving little room for compromise, Putin has expressed Moscow’s willingness to talk. However, he has made it clear that any peace agreement must reflect the territorial realities on the ground.
Earlier in June, Putin outlined Russia’s demands, including Ukraine abandoning its NATO aspirations and fully withdrawing from four annexed regions—Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson. Ukraine and its Western allies have firmly rejected these conditions.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s peace proposal insists on Russia’s complete withdrawal from all occupied territories. Though some NATO allies have hesitated to offer immediate membership, Zelenskyy insists on robust security guarantees from the U.S. and other Western nations as crucial for any potential peace agreement.
As of now, about 20% of Ukrainian territory remains under Russian control, including Crimea, which was annexed in 2014. Russia has held the initiative on the battlefield for much of 2024, making significant territorial gains across several areas of the front line, marking some of the largest advancements since the invasion began.