Vladimir Putin pointed the finger at former President Joe Biden for allowing the war with Ukraine to materialize.
The Russian leader mentioned that if Donald Trump had been President in 2022, he would have avoided starting a war more than three years ago.
During a joint press conference held in Anchorage, Alaska on Friday, Putin stated that he advised Biden against letting the situation escalate to a ‘point of no return’ leading to conflict.
‘I said it quite directly back then that it’s a big mistake,’ Putin said, according to a real-time translation.
He emphasized, ‘President Trump has expressed that if he had been in office, there wouldn’t be a war, and I am quite confident of that. I can verify it.’
Putin’s remarks served as a significant compliment to an impressionable leader, attempting to prevent him from fully supporting Ukraine and Europe’s interests.
Trump has frequently asserted that his relationship with Putin would have deterred Russia from invading Ukraine had he won reelection in 2020.
On June 16, 2021, Biden and Putin met in-person for a summit in Geneva, Switzerland amid rising tensions between Moscow and Washington, D.C.
Russian President Vladimir Putin noted at Friday’s press conference in Alaska that it is likely true there would be no current conflict with Ukraine had Donald Trump been elected in 2020 instead of Joe Biden.
Putin said he warned Biden he shouldn’t let the situation progress to ‘the point of no return when it would come to hostilities… I said it quite directly back then that it’s a big mistake’
Just eight months later on February 24, 2022, Putin invaded Ukraine, kick-starting a deadly war that still wages on today and has left thousands dead and displaced.
Trump’s negotiations with Putin appear to be Ukraine’s last chance to get an end to the bloodshed and land grab by Russia.
European leaders have expressed concern that Trump will concede too much land, but Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has recognized that a peace deal might need to include handing over more land area to Putin’s regime.
President Putin said on Friday that having a good trustworthy business relationship with Trump makes him confident that ‘we can come to see the end of the conflict in Ukraine.’
Though the two leaders acknowledged there is still a far way to go. Additionally, no ceasefire was announced in their joint press conference.
‘I have every reason to believe that moving down this path we can come to see the end of the conflict in Ukraine,’ Putin said at the end of his remarks.
And if the greeting between Trump and Putin was any indication of their relationship, it’s very likely the two are chummy.
Trump has repeatedly said he would have been able to use his relationship with Putin to avoid war. Putin said on Friday: ‘I have every reason to believe that moving down this path we can come to see the end of the conflict in Ukraine’
The two were smiling as they saw each other in the flesh for the first time since 2018.
With an abundance of physical contact and a round of applause from Trump for the authoritarian leader, body language expert Judi James tells the Daily Mail that he gave Putin ‘the ultimate ego-stroke’ by publicly treating him like a celebrity guest.
Putin appeared visibly pleased with how the lengthy greeting went, and James said he was left ‘purring’ with delight.
Experts warn that Trump already handed Putin a ‘victory’ by inviting him to U.S. soil for the first time in more than a decade and agreeing to exclude Zelensky.
But James notes that the U.S. president’s tone swiftly altered when they were in a room for their official talks.
He took a more ‘heavyweight, power pose’ as it was time to get down to business, she notes.
‘After the overkill cordiality of his greeting ritual Trump’s grim expression and his tapping fingertips here suddenly gave him a tougher and less optimistic look,’ James notes.
After their nearly three-hour face-to-face meeting, Trump and Putin took turns speaking in a 12-minute joint press conference. They took no questions.
The meeting was the first time they sat down in-person since Trump came back into office.
It also was the first time that Putin stepped foot on U.S. soil since he was in New York City in 2015 for a United Nations General Assembly gathering where he also met with then-President Barack Obama.
