Moscow, Jan 9 (IANS): Russian President Vladimir Putin would welcome contact with Donald Trump if Trump's political will remains after his inauguration as US president on January 20, said the Kremlin on Thursday.
There are currently no requests for contact from the US side, said Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov. However, it would be reasonable to wait until Trump takes office, he added.
At a recent press conference at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, President-elect Trump said he was aware that the Russian leader would like to meet, adding that such a meeting would only be appropriate after his inauguration.
Trump said that he can "understand the Russians' feelings" about President Joe Biden allegedly breaking a "deal" to deny Ukraine NATO membership.
Discussing the causes of the war, Trump said that the prospect of Ukraine joining NATO had been "a major issue for Russia for many, many years".
"You know, a big part of the problem was Russia for many, many years, long before (Russian President, Vladimir) Putin said, you could never have NATO involved with Ukraine. Now they've said … that's been like written in stone. Somewhere along the line (US President Joe) Biden said no, they should be able to join NATO. Well, then Russia has somebody right on their doorstep and I could understand their feeling about that," Trump told reporters on Tuesday at Mar-a-Lago in Florida.
"There were a lot of mistakes made in that negotiation. When I heard the way that Biden was negotiating, I said you're going to end up in a war and it turned out to be a very bad war. That war could escalate to be much worse than it is right now," he said in response to a question.
Last month, Trump had said that he would speak to the President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky and that of Russia Vladimir Putin to end the "carnage" of nearly three years of war.
Trump has been highly critical of billions of dollars of aid that the Biden administration provided to Kyiv to battle Moscow's invasion.
"We'll be talking to President Putin, and we'll be talking to the representatives, Zelensky and representatives from Ukraine," Trump had said.
"We gotta stop it, it's carnage," he added, referring to the war.
Trump has repeatedly claimed he could swiftly end the conflict but has not provided concrete details on how.