Trump says he will speak to Putin soon

WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump has said that he would soon speak to his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin and help in settling the war in Ukraine.

Trump's comments came a day after Putin said Russia is ready for talks with the US on a broad range of issues.

“He wants to speak and will be speaking soon. I've spoken to (Ukrainian) President (Volodymyr) Zelensky numerous times, and they'd like to see peace. They would like to see an end to the war. I think President Putin would like to see an end to the war too,” Trump told reporters on Saturday.

“So, we'll see if we can help it along. I think it's a shame it's a war that would have never happened,” he said.

Trump has repeatedly said he wouldn't have allowed the conflict to start if he had been in office.

Putin on Friday said he was ready to discuss the war in Ukraine with Trump and suggested it would be a good idea for them to meet.

Putin told a Russian state TV journalist: “We believe the current president’s statements about his readiness to work together. We are always open to this and ready for negotiations."

When asked about his first international trip, Trump said it could be Saudi Arabia or the United Kingdom.

“It could be Saudi Arabia, it could be the UK. Traditionally, it's been the UK. Last time I went to Saudi Arabia because they agreed to buy USD450 billion worth of United States merchandise, including a lot of military, farm and other equipment. And if that offer were right, I'd do that again,” he said.

Trump said he has a call with the British Prime Minister Keir Starmer over the next 24 hours.

“I get along with him, well, I like him a lot. He's liberal, which is a little bit different for me, but I think he's a very good person. He has done a very good job thus far," Trump said.

In his call with the Saudi crown prince, Trump discussed bringing oil prices down.

He blamed his predecessor for allowing oil prices to go up.

“I discussed getting oil prices down because if you get oil prices down, Russia will stop the war. Biden should have never allowed him to go up so high. When Biden let them go up to that level, he was just inducing Russia, which sells oil, to go into a war,” Trump said.

“He should have never allowed the Democrats, namely, Biden allowed oil prices to go up as one of the reasons, yeah, the Ukraine catastrophe,” he said.