What did I say a year ago? Go ahead. You read the Report. Come on! I'm waiting...
I SAID...that the Dark Lord would get elected and end the war. He'd let Putin have the Donbas and there would be peace. No Ukraine in NATO...BAM done. Putin's ready for this to end and Ukraine has no say in the matter. Once we pull funding game over.
Honestly, those Vader-type guys love working together to do bad stuff and then bromance about it.
Trump Talked to Putin By Phone Wednesday, the First Official Contact of Presidency
U.S. president says the two leaders have agreed to visit each other’s countries and will open immediate talks on Ukraine war
By Nancy A. Youssef, Alan Cullison and Alexander Ward, WSJ
Updated Feb. 12, 2025 12:41 pm ET
President Trump said he had a “lengthy and highly productive phone call” Wednesday with Russia’s Vladimir Putin, the first official acknowledgment that the two leaders have talked since Trump was elected.
In a statement on Truth Social, Trump said he and Putin have agreed to visit each other’s countries and to open immediate talks to end the war in Ukraine. “I believe this effort will lead to a successful conclusion, hopefully soon!” he wrote.
The conversation followed a prisoner exchange between Washington and Moscow that Trump has said could be a harbinger for better relations between the U.S. and Russia.
“We want to stop the millions of deaths taking place in the War with Russia/Ukraine,” Trump wrote. “President Putin even used my very strong Campaign motto of, “COMMON SENSE.”
Trump had run for president on a promise to quickly end the war in Ukraine. In a softening of the U.S. stance in advance of anticipated negotiations, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Wednesday called the prospect of Ukraine returning to its pre-2014 borders “an unrealistic objective.”
His statement was the first by the administration to publicly set territorial parameters amid a push for negotiated settlement to end the war with Russia.
Speaking Wednesday in Brussels during his first trip to Europe as Pentagon chief, Hegseth rejected sending U.S. troops to Ukraine, adding that any security guarantees offered to Kyiv “must be backed by capable European and non-European troops.”
He also took Ukraine’s accession into the North Atlantic Treaty Organization off the table. “The United States does not believe that NATO membership for Ukraine is a realistic outcome of a negotiated settlement,” he said.
Hegseth’s comments were the first detailed outlines of what Washington’s support for Ukraine could look like going forward and what it would seek to end the war. He called for an outcome in which “a durable peace for Ukraine must include robust security guarantees to ensure that the war will not begin again.”
While Ukraine has said it wants all of its territory back, it also has said it now would struggle to reclaim the roughly 20% now occupied by Russia as a result of the war, which began in 2022. Zelensky has said that he hopes Western partners will help Ukraine negotiate a diplomatic deal for the return of its territory. Russia also seized Crimea, the Black Sea peninsula, from Ukraine in 2014.
Hegseth didn’t address the extent of weapons and military support the U.S. would provide Ukraine. According to the State Department, as of Jan. 20, the U.S. had provided Ukraine with $65.9 billion in military support. The flow has slowed under the Trump administration, and Hegseth suggested there wouldn’t be a surge of weapons.
“We’re also here today to directly and unambiguously express that stark strategic realities prevent the United States of America from being primarily focused on the security of Europe,” Hegseth said.
Keith Kellogg, Trump’s Ukraine envoy, said he planned to brief allies on the state of negotiations this weekend during the Munich Security Conference. “We have a real opportunity here to end the war,” he said, adding that countries are reaching out to the U.S. to signal their support for the diplomatic initiative.
Kellogg is coordinating a Ukraine-Russia message with key administration players. Those include Hegseth, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, national security adviser Mike Waltz and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, whom Trump said he would dispatch to meet with Zelensky. Primary U.S. players must be in sync, Kellogg said, so they speak with one voice about one of Trump’s top foreign-policy priorities. “Nobody can find a wedge between us,” Kellogg said.
The White House on Tuesday secured the release of Marc Fogel, an American schoolteacher, from Russia. Asked if that release could help with a peace deal, Trump said “we have made great progress on the war.”
“There’s good will in terms of the war,” through Fogel’s release, Trump said.
Hegseth gathered with other officials in Brussels.
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