Putin eyes reset in US-Russian relations as Trump enters 2nd term
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(WASHINGTON) — In his first public comments following President Donald Trump’s inauguration, Russian President Vladimir Putin indicated on Monday that he sees a second Trump presidency as an opportunity for a new era in U.S.-Russian relations.
Putin spoke of the challenges Trump faced in the weeks running up to the November election, including the assassination attempts, and said Trump had “showed courage to win in a convincing manner.”
In a televised statement made from his official residence, the Russian leader said he recognized “the desire [of Trump’s team] to restore direct contacts with Russia,” blaming the rupture of U.S.-Russian relations on the Biden administration — while neglecting to mention his decision to launch a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, which saw tensions spike between Washington and Moscow.
Putin also recognized Trump’s stated desire to de-escalate the conflict, saying “we also hear [Trump’s] statement about the need to do everything possible to prevent World War III. We certainly welcome this attitude and congratulate the president-elect of the United States of America on his assumption of office.”
Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Putin has been increasingly isolated on the world stage. In June 2024, fresh off the heels of his closely watched visit to North Korea, Putin met with Vietnamese President To Lam in Hanoi to reaffirm the Kremlin’s ties to its long-time ally Vietnam in a bid to boost trade.
Trump has already indicated he would meet with Putin, saying during an Oval Office spray on Monday that “I’ll be meeting with President Putin.” Trump didn’t say when the meeting might occur. Later, when asked for his message to Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Trump suggested the Ukrainian president is willing to come to the negotiating table, but said he’s unsure if Putin would.
“He told me he wants to make a deal. He wants to make — Zelenskyy wants to make a deal. I don’t know if Putin does,” Trump said.
During his latest January press conference at Mar-a-Lago, Trump had indicated he hoped to meet with Putin within six months into his second presidency.
“I know that Putin would like to meet,” Trump said at the time. “I don’t think it’s appropriate that I meet until after the 20th, which I hate because, you know, every day, people are being — many, many young people are being killed.”
This comes as Russia and Ukraine exchanged large drone attacks on Sunday night into Monday, with UAVs forcing flight restrictions at three Russian airports and prompting reports of an attack on a major military aviation hub.
Meanwhile, Zelenskyy said Ukraine is “ready to work together with Americans to achieve peace,” referring to Trump as a “strong person.”
“The inauguration of the new president of the United States, Donald Trump. He is a strong person. I wish President Trump and all of America success. Ukrainians are ready to work together with Americans to achieve peace, true peace. This is an opportunity that must be seized,” Zelenskyy said during his daily remarks on Monday.
This moment “is a good opportunity” to establish security “for ourselves and for everyone in Europe,” Zelenskyy added.
ABC News’ Kelsey Walsh contributed to this report.
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(LONDON) — High-level delegations from the U.S. and Russia held talks in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday over the fate of Ukraine, the negotiations taking place without Kyiv’s participation.
The State Department said the talks were aimed to discuss ending the now three-year-long war, which began with Russia’s full-scale invasion of its neighbor in 2022 and followed sustained cross-border aggression from Moscow since 2014.
Tuesday’s meeting in Riyadh concluded after around five hours, according to the press pool covering the meeting, with the State Department saying the discussions represented “an important step forward” toward “enduring peace.”
The talks between Moscow and Washington end a period of some three years — since President Joe Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin met in Geneva before Russia invaded Ukraine — without senior-level engagement between the two nations.
The U.S. team was led by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff and National Security Adviser Michael Waltz. The Russian negotiating delegation included Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, Kremlin foreign policy adviser Yuri Ushakov and Kirill Dmitriev, the head of Russia’s sovereign wealth fund.
State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce said the U.S. team agreed to establish “a consultation mechanism to address irritants to our bilateral relationship with the objective of taking steps necessary to normalize the operation of our respective diplomatic missions.” Rubio told the Associated Press the two sides agreed to restore embassy staffing as part of this normalization.
The two sides also agreed to appoint “high-level teams to begin working on a path to ending the conflict in Ukraine as soon as possible in a way that is enduring, sustainable and acceptable to all sides,” Bruce said, plus to “lay the groundwork for future cooperation on matters of mutual geopolitical interest and historic economic and investment opportunities which will emerge from a successful end to the conflict in Ukraine.”
“The parties to today’s meetings pledge to remain engaged to make sure the process moves forward in a timely and productive manner,” Bruce added.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy responded to the talks while visiting Turkey, suggesting Russia was reviving ultimatums it issued as part of the peace talks that took place in the early stages of Moscow’s full-scale invasion.
“I have the impression that there are now some negotiations happening and they have the same mood, but between Russia and the United States,” Zelenskyy said at the Ukrainian embassy in Ankara.
“Again, about Ukraine without Ukraine,” he added. “It’s interesting, if Ukraine didn’t yield to ultimatums in the most difficult moment, where does the feeling come from that Ukraine will agree to this now?”
“I never intended to yield to Russia’s ultimatums and I don’t intend to now,” Zelenskyy said.
Lavrov and Rubio talked on the phone Saturday, according to the State Department, after a conversation between Putin and President Donald Trump last week.
While a spokesperson for Putin said the meeting would be “devoted” primarily to “restoring the entire range of Russian-American relations,” Bruce said that the meeting would be more narrowly focused on the “larger issue of Ukraine.”
After the Trump-Putin conversation, Bruce called the meeting the “second step to determine if the Russians perhaps are serious, and if they’re on the same page.”
Ukraine ‘will not recognize’ deal struck without it Zelenskyy was not invited to the meeting. Zelenskyy said Monday that Ukraine “cannot acknowledge any … agreements about us without us, and will not recognize such agreements.”
“Earlier, during the war, it was considered taboo to talk to the aggressor,” the Ukrainian president said.
On Tuesday, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told journalists that Putin is prepared for negotiations with Zelenskyy “if necessary,” though again questioned the Ukrainian president’s legitimacy. Putin and his officials have repeatedly framed Zelenskyy as illegitimate, citing the delay to planned Ukrainian presidential elections necessitated by martial law.
Amid the flurry of diplomatic activity, French President Emmanuel Macron convened a meeting of European heads of government in Paris Monday ahead of the U.S.-Russia engagement.
Macron and Trump spoke via telephone for nearly 30 minutes prior to the European meeting, a White House official said. The official called the conversation “friendly” and said it included discussion of the war in Ukraine and the U.S.-Russia bilateral meetings Tuesday.
Mike Waltz, the White House national security adviser, said on Sunday he would “push back on … any notion that [Ukrainians] aren’t being consulted.”
“They absolutely are. And at the end of the day, though, this is going to be under President Trump’s leadership that we get this war to an end,” Waltz said, conceding “they may not like some of the sequencing that is going on in these negotiations.”
Zelenskyy himself was in the Middle East, where he met with officials in the United Arab Emirates Monday, with Tuesday meetings scheduled in Turkey and Saudi Arabia. Zelenskyy said he would ask Saudi de facto leader and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman about the U.S.-Russia meetings when in Riyadh.
The opening of White House-facilitated talks on peace in Ukraine came after Trump officials signaled potential terms for a deal in the lead up to, and during, the Munich Security Conference in Germany last week.
Ahead of the conference, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth called a return to Ukrainian borders before Russia’s 2014 invasion of Crimea “unrealistic.” That “illusionary goal” — and NATO membership for Ukraine — would not be promoted by the U.S., the secretary said.
Zelenskyy told Munich attendees that Ukraine must be assured of membership in “NATO, or a reliable alternative.”
He called for the building of the “armed forces of Europe” as the Trump administration presses for more European spending on defense.
Among the attendees of Macron’s hastily organized meeting in Paris, the prime ministers of the United Kingdom and Sweden said they would be open to contributing armed forces on the ground in Ukraine in a peacekeeping capacity after a potential deal is struck.
“If there is a peace deal [for Ukraine], and everybody wants a peace deal, then it’s got to be a lasting peace deal, not just a pause for Putin to come again,” U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer said in Paris.
“There’s also a wider piece here which is the collective security and defense in Europe, and here, I think we’ve got a generational challenge. We’ve all got to step up,” he added.
ABC News’ Molly Nagle, Patrick Reevell, Yulia Drozd and Joe Simonetti contributed to this report.
(SEOUL, South Korea) — Seoul Western District Court on Tuesday night reissued a warrant to detain impeached President Yoon Suk Yeol.
The Corruption Investigation Office chief, Oh Dong-woon, said during a parliament hearing that they would “thoroughly prepare for the execution of arrest, as if it was the last chance.”
The effort to detain Yoon came after a South Korean court issued an arrest and search warrant on Dec. 31 over his short-lived imposition of martial law, ABC News confirmed. Yoon has been suspended from his position since Dec. 14.
Yoon’s attorney told reporters Wednesday that he is still at his residence and is greatly disappointed to hear rumors saying he had fled. Opposition lawmakers had spread those rumors, the attorney said.
To prepare for another arrest attempt, the President’s Secret Service heightened surveillance near the Presidential residence, adding more chains to the barbed wire fence and blocking vehicles.
Yoon’s lawyer said he still strongly believes that the CIO’s execution of the arrest warrant is illegitimate, as the CIO lacks the authority to investigate insurrection. He also pointed out that the Seoul Western District Court, which reissued the arrest warrant, has no jurisdiction. Nevertheless, he told reporters, the impeached president would stand trial if he were to be indicted.
Thousands had gathering on Sunday, a day before another arrest warrant for Yoon expired, near impeached the presidential residence
Protesters from both sides — one calling the warrant invalid or illegal and the other shouting for arrest — have occupied the wide four-lane road in a normally quiet neighborhood, blocking all traffic, in freezing temperatures and snow.
Yoon declared martial law in a televised speech on Dec. 3. The president said the measure was necessary due to the actions of the country’s liberal opposition, the Democratic Party, which he accused of controlling parliament, sympathizing with North Korea and paralyzing the government.
Animosity has been sky-high between the two sides, after over 100 investigators from the CIO anti-corruption agency and the police retreated from the residence after a tense standoff with the presidential security service.
Yoon’s die-hard supporters have been camping on the street vowing to protect him from “pro-North Korean forces about to steal away the presidency.” Anti-Yoon protesters who are backing of the opposition party claim that Yoon must be jailed for insurrection.
ABC News’ Joohee Cho and Morgan Winsor contributed to this report.
(LONDON )– Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned allies that the defense of his nation is a litmus test for broader Western resolve, after Russia fired at least 117 missiles and drones in an overnight attack on the country’s energy infrastructure facilities.
“It’s the middle of winter, and the target for the Russians remains the same: our energy sector,” Zelenskyy wrote in a statement posted to Telegram. “Among the targets are gas infrastructure and energy facilities that ensure normal life for people.”
Air alerts sounded across the country. “Ukraine is currently under a massive attack of ballistic and cruise missiles and drones from Russia,” U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Bridget Brink wrote on X. “Thanks to Ukraine’s brave air defenders for their relentless and heroic work.”
Zelenskyy described the attack as “massive,” with Ukraine’s air force tallying 43 missiles and 74 drones crossing into national airspace. Thirty of the missiles and 47 of the drones were shot down, the air force said, with another 27 drones lost in flight.
“Thanks to our air defense and all the units involved, we are maintaining the operation of our energy system,” Zelenskyy said on Wednesday morning.
“But we constantly need to strengthen the existing capabilities of the Ukrainian air shield,” the president added. “Partners at the NATO summit in Washington and in the Ramstein format made promises that have not yet been fully implemented.”
“We also talked about licenses for the production of air defense and anti-missile systems, which can become one of the effective security guarantees for Ukraine, and this is also realistic and must be fulfilled,” Zelenskyy continued.
“We are grateful to everyone who helps our state,” he wrote. “But it is not only about our state. Right now, the defense of Ukraine is proving whether Europe and the democratic world in general are capable of stopping wars — reliably and for a long time.”
Zelenskyy and his top officials have repeatedly demanded that NATO allies do more to bolster Ukraine’s air defense umbrella, with the country struggling through a third consecutive winter of massed Russian attacks on the national energy grid.
Though allies have provided significant numbers of advanced systems, Zelenskyy has said the number is not sufficient to protect vital targets.
At a Sept. 6 meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group, the president told Western partners, “The world has enough air defense systems to ensure that Russian terror does not have results, and I urge you to be more active in this war with us for the air defense.”
The latest Russian barrage came after a record-breaking night of Ukrainian drone attacks in Western Russia, in which Kyiv’s forces said they hit a chemical plant in Tula region, ammunition warehouses at the Engels airfield in Saratov region, an oil refinery in Saratov and a chemical plant in Bryansk.
A source in the Security Service of Ukraine told ABC News that Ukrainian forces are continuing to “work on enemy military facilities and enterprises that work for the Russian military-industrial complex.”
“Every hit, ammunition depot, refinery, oil depot, or chemical plant is a painful blow to the Russian Federation’s ability to wage war in Ukraine,” the source said.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said it intercepted six U.S.-made ATACMS missiles, eight British-made Storm Shadow cruise missiles, one U.S.-made HIMARS missile and 180 aircraft-type unmanned aerial vehicles, 146 of which were intercepted outside of occupied Ukraine and the front lines.
