Putin opened his joint press conference with Trump in Alaska on Friday by ranting for several minutes about history before finally making his way to current events — and announcing in a very roundabout way that he intends to continue his war.
After a multi-hour meeting behind closed doors, Putin took to the podium and said only briefly that negotiations to end the war in Ukraine had been “productive.” He then launched into a minutes-long lecture about Russia’s links to Alaska and shared history with the U.S., saying the two countries are “close neighbors.” He said he’d even greeted Trump that way on the tarmac before negotiations, telling the American president: “Good day, dear neighbor.”
After hyping a history of “shared enemies” between Moscow and Washington, Putin repeated his worn-out claim that Ukraine, too, is a “brotherly” nation, and the war a “tragedy” that Russia did not cause. The Alaska summit, he said, provided a “reference point” for eventually “solving the Ukrainian problem.”
No immediate agreement was reached to stop the fighting, however.
In a thinly veiled jab at Ukrainian leaders — who the Kremlin has long accused of thwarting peace efforts by not agreeing to give up territory — Putin urged European leaders and those in Kyiv to take a “constructive” approach without “provocations” or “behind the scenes intrigue” that might derail progress.
He then wrapped up his speech by endorsing Trump’s oft-repeated claim that there would have been no war in Ukraine if Trump had won the 2020 presidential election.
“Today we hear when President Trump says, ‘If I were president, there would have been no war.’ I think that is actually true. I confirm that,” he said.
Reporters weren’t given the opportunity to ask questions following Putin’s remarks. If they had been, perhaps one of them would have asked how Trump could have prevented a war that started in 2014.
