Putin Tells Diplomats He Made Trump a New Offer on Ukraine at Their Summit
Vladimir Putin told Russian diplomats that he made a proposal to Donald Trump at their summit this week to hold a referendum to help resolve the conflict in eastern Ukraine, but agreed not to disclose the plan publicly so the U.S. president could consider it, according to two people who attended Putin’s closed-door speech on Thursday. Details of what the two leaders discussed in their summit in Helsinki, Finland, remain scarce, with much of the description so far coming from Russia. While Putin portrayed the Ukraine offer as a sign he’s seeking to bring the four-year-old crisis to an end, a referendum is likely to be a hard sell with Ukraine and its backers in Europe, who remain committed to an 2015 European-brokered truce deal for the Donbas region, parts of which are controlled by Russian-backed separatists. White House officials didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. If Putin’s account of Trump’s reaction is accurate, it would suggest a more flexible approach than the U.S. has shown to date on the issue. At the Helsinki meeting, Trump also agreed to consider a Putin request to question the former U.S. ambassador to Moscow over U.S. campaign-finance violations that critics say Trump should have dismissed outright. Putin gave his latest account of the meeting during at a conference with top Russian ambassadors and officials at the Foreign Ministry in Moscow, the people said, asking not to be identified discussing the president’s comments to the part of the session that was closed to the public. One of the people said that Trump had requested Putin not discuss the referendum idea at the press conference after the summit in order to give the U.S. leader time to mull it. |
US-China talks start with warnings about misunderstandings and miscalculations
374Yesterday, 11:18NATO chief Stoltenberg says it's 'not too late for Ukraine to prevail' against Russia
411Yesterday, 10:06#Bloomberg: Macron Is Gauging Support for a Plan to Install Draghi in the Top EU Job
57025.04.2024, 17:00Biden gave the green light to help Ukraine
55525.04.2024, 10:30Ukraine uses long-range missiles secretly provided by US to hit Russian-held areas, officials say
55825.04.2024, 10:00Patel: ''US welcomes the beginning of the process of delimitation of the border between Azerbaijan and Armenia''
32825.04.2024, 09:48