President Donald Trump’s patience is being tested by Russian President Vladimir Putin, who launched a barrage of airstrikes on the Ukrainian capital city of Kyiv, killing 12 people and injuring nearly 100 more this week, one day ahead of Special Envoy Steve Witkoff’s fourth visit to Moscow.
Trump told reporters Friday he believes it is “possible” and even “very probable” his administration will negotiate a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine.
“I think, in the end, we’re going to end up with a lot of good deals, including tariff deals and trade deals. We’re going to make our country rich,” Trump said ahead of his departure for Rome. “We’re going to try and get out of war so that we can save 5,000 people a week. That’s what my aim is.”
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Trump repeated that he has no deadline for a deal, only that one must be ironed out “as fast as possible.”
He made his comments one week after the U.S. threatened to abandon talks if Russia and Ukraine didn’t soon reach a deal and one day after Trump issued a direct message to Putin on social media to “stop” bombing Ukraine.
“I am not happy with the Russian strikes on KYIV. Not necessary, and very bad timing. Vladimir, STOP! 5,000 soldiers a week are dying. Let’s get the peace deal DONE,” he wrote.
Trump also conceded that his repeated claims from the campaign trail that he would have the war in Ukraine stopped within 24 hours of taking office were not based on realistic goals but were “figurative.”
“I said that as an exaggeration,” he told reporters, again blaming the war on his predecessor, President Biden.
But it appears Trump’s verbal warnings to Putin have fallen on deaf ears, similar to the results of Biden’s verbal warnings. Trump has repeatedly accused Biden of being partly at fault for the war, though he has not explained why.
Former Moscow CIA Station Chief Dan Hoffman said he and other security experts repeatedly warned that, under the Biden administration, Ukraine was not sufficiently armed to adequately take on Russia.
“After failing to deter Putin’s invasion, the Biden administration just kept Ukraine in the fight but didn’t give Ukraine a chance to punch back fast enough or hard enough,” he said.
“There are three options,” Hoffman added, explaining how the U.S. can use its position as leverage over Moscow. “One, entice Russia. That’s what Trump is trying to do with trade deals and eliminating sanctions. And Putin has kind of plowed through that by rejecting confidence-building ceasefire deals.
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“The second option is to make Putin pay on the battlefield so that he feels so much pain he has to stop the invasion,” he added. “We convince Putin that we’re going to rearm Ukraine by saying, ‘We’ve offered you a great deal. You don’t want the deal, we’re going to arm the Ukrainians.
“The third option is to just walk away and let Europe fend for themselves and support Ukraine as much as they can. We would run the risk that Russia would take more territory from Ukraine. That would be a victory for Russia and its allies – China, North Korea and Iran.
“Let them do it, and then you’ll pay the price everywhere else in the world,” Hoffman warned, referring to China’s threats against Taiwan. “Americans don’t like to fight wars. OK, we don’t like to lose wars either.”
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An official with knowledge of the talks told Fox News Digital Friday that “Ambassador Witkoff is in Russia to meet with President Putin as part of President Trump’s efforts to make peace.
“It’s long past time for the death and destruction to stop, to move past the failed strategies of the past and for an end to this devastating conflict,” the official added without commenting on the “substance of negotiations.”
A report by Axios this week suggested the White House had extended a “final offer” to Ukraine and Russia that called on Kyiv to recognize Russia’s occupation of nearly all the Luhansk region and the occupied areas of the Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions.
It also said the U.S. would agree to recognize Crimea, which Putin illegally seized from Ukraine in 2014, as now legally a part of Russia, and that Washington would lift sanctions.
Neither the White House nor the National Security Council responded to Fox News Digital’s repeated questions about whether there will be consequences for Putin should he fail to enter into an agreement with Ukraine.
The administration also did not comment on why it believes Putin wants to enter into an agreement with the U.S. when security officials have repeatedly warned otherwise.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has already said he will not acknowledge Crimea as a part of Russia but rather as Ukrainian land illegally occupied by Russia.
Zelenskyy also on Thursday posted a 2018 “Crimea declaration” by Trump’s first-term Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, which said, “No country can change the borders of another by force” in a move to signify Trump’s apparent position change that now favors Russia.
