Putin says Russia is ready to compromise with Trump on Ukraine war

During boasts about Russia’s military achievements in his annual marathon televised news conference, Vladimir Putin says he is ready to compromise over Ukraine in possible talks on ending his war and has no conditions for starting discussions.

The Russian president told one reporter he was ready to meet Donald Trump, who he said he had not spoken to for years.

The US president-elect has vowed to swiftly end the Ukraine war, without giving any details on how he might achieve that.

Asked what he might be able to offer Mr Trump, Mr Putin dismissed an assertion that Russia was in a weak position.

“We have always said that we are ready for negotiations and compromises,” Mr Putin said, after claiming that Russian forces, advancing across the entire front, were moving towards achieving their primary goals in Ukraine.

“Soon, those Ukrainians who want to fight will run out, in my opinion, soon there will be no one left who wants to fight. We are ready, but the other side needs to be ready for both negotiations and compromises.”

Reuters reported last month that Mr Putin was open to discussing a Ukraine ceasefire deal with Mr Trump but ruled out making any major territorial concessions and insisted Kyiv must abandon its ambitions to join Nato.

Mr Putin said on Thursday that Russia had no conditions to start talks with Ukraine and was ready to negotiate with anyone, including Volodymyr Zelensky.

But he said any deal could only be signed with Ukraine’s legitimate authorities, which for now the Kremlin considered to only be the Ukrainian parliament.

Mr Zelensky, whose term was due to expire earlier this year but has been extended due to martial law, would need to be re-elected for Moscow to consider him a legitimate signatory to any deal to ensure it was legally watertight, said Mr Putin.

Any talks should take as their starting point a preliminary agreement – never enacted – that was reached between Russian and Ukrainian negotiators at talks in Istanbul in the early weeks of the war, he added.

Some Ukrainian politicians regard that draft deal as akin to a capitulation which would have neutered Ukraine’s military and political ambitions.

Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine has left tens of thousands dead, displaced millions and triggered the biggest crisis in relations between Moscow and the West since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis.