Trump To Open Discussions With Zelenskyy, Putin To End “Carnage”

US President-elect Donald Trump said Monday he will speak with the leaders of Russia and Ukraine in an effort to end the war triggered by Moscow’s invasion.

Trump has frequently questioned the billions in aid that President Joe Biden’s administration has provided to Ukraine since the war started in 2022 and has spoken admiringly of Russian President Vladimir Putin, who ordered the invasion of Ukraine.

During the US election campaign Trump said he could bring the war to an end in a day but has failed to say how he would do so, although some fear he envisions pressuring Ukraine to give up land that Russia has captured.

“We’ll be talking to President Putin, and we’ll be talking to the representatives, Zelensky and representatives from Ukraine. We gotta stop it, it’s carnage,” Trump told a news conference, referring to Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky, just over a month before his return to the White House.

Trump said the war had left cities in ruins — “there’s not a building standing” — and drew on his experience as a New York real estate developer to draw a comparison.

“It’s just rubble. Just like when I knock down a building in Manhattan, which is actually, this is worse actually, because we do it step by step,” said Trump.

“This thing has just got demolished, and by the way, in those buildings are many people,” Trump said, adding that the structures are “flattened like a pancake.”