Ukraine war: Vladimir Putin apparently wants to negotiate Ukraine with Donald Trump and Xi Jinping in China

Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump in Alaska last year

According to a newspaper report, Russian President Vladimir Putin wants to negotiate with US President Donald Trump and China’s head of state Xi Jinping about an end to his war of aggression. Ukraine's participation is apparently not planned. This was reported by the Wall Street Journal, citing people familiar with the discussions. The Kremlin had proposed to speak on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific summit (Apec) on November 18 and 19 in Shenzhen, China.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov confirmed to the newspaper that a possible meeting would be discussed. “There are still no clear ideas about the meeting itself or its possible agenda, although all three parties acknowledge the hypothetical possibility that such a meeting would take place,” he told the paper. According to a senior US official, Trump has not yet agreed to such a summit, but may be open to the idea.

As the “Wall Street Journal” further reported, citing a former Russian intelligence official familiar with the incident, Putin’s proposal goes back to a phone call with Trump on October 9. During the talks, the diesel business between the two countries had also come about. Trump had also lifted on Friday by decree important sanctions against Moscow.

Protest in New York against Trump’s treatment of Putin before the US mid-term elections

Trump justified the suspension of sanctions against Russia by saying that he wanted to keep Russia at the negotiating table. “My decision is a very simple one,” Trump wrote on his platform Truth Social. I am negotiating a peace in the war between Russia and Ukraine, and I do not want to do anything that would foolishly drive Russia off the negotiating table. ‘

On Friday, Trump had justified the suspension of the sanctions with national security interests. Analysts mainly see that the US president fears high fuel prices before the midterm elections.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has expressed deep concern about a possible US rapprochement with Russia. “If the United States sided with Russia, we cannot survive,” Zelensky told NBC. Withdrawal of U.S. support for Kyiv would be “a historic mistake, a great tragedy.”

“I believe steps have been taken to persuade Ukraine to surrender,” he later added in a Bloomberg interview. “I’m not saying that this is the stated goal of our partners,” he said. I don’t want to believe that our American partners believe that the war could be ended more quickly – at the expense of Ukraine. But that's what it looks like