Trump says he loves the Russian people and offers 'deal' to Putin
The US president urged Moscow to end the Ukraine conflict “the easy way”, threatening to ramp up sanctions if it did not.
According to RT news agency, US President Donald Trump on January 22 issued a thinly veiled ultimatum to Russia, urging the country to end the Ukraine conflict and reach a “deal”, or face new sanctions and high import tariffs.
Mr Trump made the warning in a post on his online platform Truth Social, expressing his “love” for the Russian people and asserting that he “does not want to hurt Russia”.
“We must never forget that Russia helped us win World War II, losing nearly 60 million lives in the process,” he wrote, although RT said the US leader gave a figure more than double the estimate of the actual Soviet death toll.
Mr Trump called for a resolution to the Ukraine conflict now, calling it a “silly war”, asserting that the situation “will only get worse”. If no “deal” is reached “soon”, President Trump declared, he will “have no choice but to impose massive tariffs and sanctions on anything Russia sells to the US and many other countries”. The US president also reiterated that the Russia-Ukraine conflict “would never have happened” if he were still in office.
“We can do it the easy way or the hard way – and the easy way is always better,” Mr. Trump warned Moscow.
Earlier in the day, Mr. Trump reaffirmed his readiness to engage in dialogue with Russian President Vladimir Putin, stressing that he had previously had “a very strong understanding” with the Russian leader. Asked exactly when the exchange might take place, Mr. Trump replied: “Whenever they want to — I’ll meet.”
“We’re talking to Mr. Zelensky of Ukraine. We’ll be talking to President Putin very shortly and we’ll see how it goes,” Mr. Trump said.
Putin on January 20 welcomed Trump’s announced intention to resume contacts between Russia and the US, which had been halted under the Biden administration. However, such a potential dialogue can only take place on the basis of “equality and mutual respect,” the Russian president warned at a meeting of Russia’s National Security Council.