Biden Says He’s Open to Speaking With Putin If He’s Interested in Ending War On Ukraine
President Joe Biden has said that he would be interested in speaking with Vladimir Putin if the Russian president is interested in ending his war in Ukraine.
During a joint press conference with French President Emmanuel Macron on Thursday, a reporter asked the question through translation.
“We hear not you will be talking to President Putin any time soon. What is your approach? And as the Ukrainian war seems to be a turning point, do you feel realistic that [Ukrainian] President [Volodymyr] Zelensky is putting a condition to open negotiations and that is the return of Crimea to Ukraine?” the reporter asked.
Biden responded that he doesn’t have immediate plans to talk with Putin but is open to doing so if it’s to end the Russian invasion:
Look, there’s one way for this war to end, the rational way. Putin to pull out of Ukraine, number one. But it appears he’s not going to do that. He’s paying a very heavy price for failing to do it, but he’s inflicting incredible, incredible carnage on the civilian population of Ukraine. Bombing nurseries, hospitals, children’s homes. It’s sick what he’s doing.
But the fact of the matter is, I have no immediate plans to contact Mr. Putin. Mr. Putin is — choose my words very carefully — I’m prepared to speak with Mr. Putin if in fact there is an interest in him deciding he’s looking for a way to end the war. He hasn’t done that yet. If that’s the case, in consultation with my French and my NATO friends, I’ll be happy to sit down with Putin to see what he wants, has in mind. He hasn’t done that yet.
Biden went on to say that Putin guessed wrong about how Russia would fare in Ukraine:
In the meantime, I think it’s absolutely critical what Emmanuel said. We must support the Ukrainian people. The idea that Putin is ever going to defeat Ukraine is beyond comprehension. Imagine him trying to occupy that country for the next two, five, 20 years if they could, if they could. He’s miscalculated every single thing he initially calculated. He thought he would be greeted with open arms by the Russian-speaking portions of the Ukrainian population.
Go back and read his speech when he invaded, when I said they were going to invade and they did when we said they were. Go back and read the speech he made. He talked about him needing to be another Peter the Great. He talked about the need for the people who have Kyiv, the motherlode of Russian identity, etc., etc., He’s just miscalculated across the board. And so the question is, what is his — how does he get himself out of the circumstance he’s in? I’m prepared, if he’s willing to talk, to find out what he’s willing to do. But I’ll only do it in consultation with our NATO allies. I’m not going to do it on my own.
Watch above via Fox News.
