US President Donald Trump said yesterday he wanted to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin soon to secure an end to the war with Ukraine and expressed a desire to work towards cutting nuclear arms.In the run-up to his November 5 election victory, Trump declared many times that he would have a deal in place between Ukraine and Russia on his first day in office, if not before. His advisers now concede the war will take months to resolve.“I really would like to be able to meet with President Putin soon to get that war ended,” Trump, who returned to the White House on Monday, told the World Economic Forum in Davos by video link.“And that’s not from the standpoint of economy or anything else. It’s from the standpoint of millions of lives are being wasted … It’s a carnage. And we really have to stop that war.”Trump also said US efforts to secure a peace settlement were now hopefully under way, but gave no details. Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022.Earlier this week, Trump threatened to impose “high levels” of sanctions on Russia and tariffs on imports from there if Moscow did not reach a settlement.Trump also told the crowd yesterday he wants to work towards cutting nuclear arms, adding that he thought Russia and China might support reducing their own weapons capabilities.“We’d like to see denuclearisation … and I will tell you President Putin really liked the idea of cutting way back on nuclear. And I think the rest of the world, we would have gotten them to follow, and China would have come along too,” Trump said.Putin has threatened to use nuclear weapons in his war against Ukraine. Putin has been modernising his nuclear forces and rejected talks with Washington on replacing New START, the last US-Russia arms limitation pact, when it expires on Feb. 5, 2026.In November, US officials said Putin remains within the limits set by the treaty despite his 2023 suspension of the pact that holds Russia and the United States to deploying 1,550 strategic nuclear warheads on 700 intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), submarines and bombers.The Kremlin said yesterday it saw nothing new in Trump’s calls for Russia to end its military offensive in Ukraine, and that Moscow was ready for “mutually respectful” dialogue with him.Expectations are high that Putin and Trump will soon hold a phone call to discuss the conflict, after the Republican pledged on the campaign trail to bring a swift end to the fighting.Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Russia was “ready for equal, mutually respectful dialogue.”“We are waiting for signals, which we have not yet received,” he added. Trump has not said publicly how he sees the contours of a potential peace deal between Kyiv and Moscow.Putin has outlined maximalist demands that include the Ukrainian withdrawal from parts of its own territory still under Kyiv’s control.
