Russia is open to negotiations with Ukraine; however, President Zelensky must revoke the decree prohibiting talks with the Kremlin regime. This was stated by Vladimir Putin to propagandist Pavel Zarubin.
According to Putin, if Moscow were to initiate negotiations with Kyiv now, they would be "strictly speaking, illegitimate." This is due to the decree adopted in Ukraine that bans negotiations with the current Russian authorities.
But there are also questions that require special attention. For instance, as is known, the current head of the regime in Kyiv, when he was still a sufficiently legitimate head of state, issued a decree banning negotiations. How can negotiations be resumed now if they are prohibited…
If negotiations start within the current regulatory framework, they will, strictly speaking, be illegitimate, which means that the results of these negotiations would also need to be declared illegitimate.
As long as this decree remains in effect, it is quite difficult to assert that negotiations can commence and, most importantly, be concluded properly. Some preliminary outlines may certainly be drawn, but discussing serious negotiations under Ukraine's prohibition is quite challenging.
Putin noted that U.S. President Donald Trump made many statements regarding peace negotiations. According to the head of the Kremlin regime, the war in Ukraine could have been avoided had the Republican not had his victory "stolen" in 2020.
Russia has never refused to engage with the U.S. administration. It is not our fault that the previous administration turned down those contacts. With the current U.S. president, I have always had a businesslike yet pragmatic relationship, I would say trusting.
And I cannot disagree with him that if he had been president, if his victory had not been stolen in 2020, perhaps the crisis in Ukraine that emerged in 2022 might not have occurred.
In Putin's opinion, it would be "better for the presidents to meet, based on the realities of today, and calmly discuss all those areas of interest to both the U.S. and Russia."
On January 22, Donald Trump urged the Kremlin regime to end the "senseless war" and reach a peace agreement with Ukraine.
"If we do not reach an agreement soon, I will have no choice but to impose high taxes, tariffs, and sanctions on everything Russia sells to the United States and various other countries involved in this. We can do this the easy way or the hard way — and the easy way is always better. It’s time to 'make a deal,'" Trump wrote on social media.
On January 23, speaking at the economic forum in Davos, Trump stated that he would like to meet with Putin soon to end the war in Ukraine.