US President Donald Trump on Thursday said he had a good meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and his message to Russian President Vladimir Putin is that “war has to end”.
Replying to media queries before leaving Davos, Trump said a US delegation will be meeting Putin today or tomorrow.
“I met President Zelenskyy here; the meeting was good. We (US delegation) are meeting President Putin today or tomorrow,” he said.
Asked what would be his message to Putin, Trump said, “The war has to end. A lot of people have been killed”.
“Last month, around 30,000 people were killed, mostly soldiers. It’s really a war that has to end,” Trump said. “We have got to get it done. If we don’t get it done, it will be a disgrace,” Trump said on the need to end the war.
His special envoy Steve Witkoff was expected to travel to Moscow later today to meet Putin and discuss plans to end the war.
Addressing the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum on Wednesday, Trump said that he was ‘reasonably close’ to a deal on stopping the Russia-Ukraine war, though he had earlier thought it would be an easier one for him to settle in a matter of hours.
Trump has been trying to get Zelenskyy and Putin to agree to terms to end their nearly four-year-old war.
He had said that Putin and Zelenskyy would be stupid if they don’t end it now, and that he knows they are not stupid.
Meanwhile, a trilateral meeting at the technical level between Ukraine, US and Russia is set to be held on January 23 and 24 in the United Arab Emirates. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky made the announcement during a panel discussion after his speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos on Thursday.
War has to end: Trump’s message to Putin after meeting Zelenskyy
Davos, Jan 22 (PTI)