Trump says Putin agreed to European peacekeeping troops in Ukraine: He has no problem with it
WASHINGTON — President Trump said Monday that Russian President Vladimir Putin will accept European peacekeeping troops in Ukraine as part of a potential peace deal to end the three-year-old war.“Yeah, he will accept that.I’ve asked him that question,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office while hosting French President Emmanuel Macron.“Look, if we do this deal, he’s not looking for more war.
He doesn’t mind,” Trump added.“But I’ve specifically asked him that question.He has no problem with it.”It’s unclear whether the European troops would be stationed inside currently Russian-occupied areas of eastern Ukraine or within Kyiv-held territory to deter further airstrikes.Macron said through a translator that a potential deployment of troops from his own nation to Ukraine would “be there to maintain peace, they would not be along the front lines, they would not be part of any conflict.
They would be there to ensure that the peace is respected.”Monday marked the first of two closely-watched meetings between Trump and European leaders this week, with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer — who has also backed peacekeepers in the war-torn nation — due to visit Thursday.Trump also said Monday that he was open to visiting Putin in Moscow after fighting ends — though he added that May 9 commemorations of the Allied victory over Nazi Germany in World War II would be too soon.“If this all gets settled out, which I think it will, sure I would go and he’d come here too,” Trump said.The American president spoke shortly after the US joined Russia in voting against a pro-Ukraine measure at the United Nations calling for a “just, comprehensive and lasting peace.”“I would rather not explain it now, but it’s sort of self-evident,” he told reporters of the vote, in which the US joined the likes of Russia, Belarus, Haiti, Hungary, Israel, Nicaragua and North Korea in opposing the resolution.Trump also said that he believes the US and Ru...