"I think he wants to stop fighting. I see that," Trump told reporters during a press gaggle Sunday evening.
Trump and Putin spoke last week, agreeing during the call to work together and to have their respective teams immediately start negotiations. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was informed of the call afterward. He has since said negotiations without Ukraine will not be accepted.
Trump told the reporters Sunday that his conversation with Putin lasted three hours.
He then praised Russia's military for being "a big, powerful machine" that defeated Nazi Germany's Adolf Hitler in World War II and France's Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte in 1812.
"They have been fighting a long time. They've done it before," Trump said, seemingly suggesting that Russia would defeat Ukraine if the war continued.
After seizing some 4,000 square kilometers last year, Russia occupies about 20% of Ukraine, including Crimea, which it illegally annexed in 2014.
U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said last week that returning Ukraine to its pre-2014 borders is "unrealistic," signaling that the United States is prepared to negotiate an end to the war that would see Ukraine relinquish sovereignty over land that the Kremlin has illegally occupied.
However, the threat of a future Russian offensive would persist, but Trump told reporters that Russia would not seek another land grab from Ukraine, despite having done so twice before.
Trump said he had asked Putin that question as well, stating if Putin tried to seize more of Ukraine "that would have been a big problem for us. And that would have caused me a big problem, because you just can't let that happen."
"I think he wants to end it," Trump said. "And they want to end it fast, both of them. And Zelensky wants to end it, too."
Asked when the peace negotiations with Russia in Saudi Arabia will occur, Trump said no time yet has been set.
"But it could be very soon," he said, before stating the negotiations should have been held before the war began with Russia's invasion on Feb. 24, 2022.
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