President Donald Trump on Wednesday poured cold water on Vladimir Putin’s offer to act as a mediator between Israel and Iran amid the deadly conflict, suggesting that the Russian leader should prioritize ending the war in Ukraine.
Trump said he spoke to Putin on Tuesday, claiming, once more, that Russia would have never proceeded with the full-scale invasion of its neighbor in February 2022 if he were president.
While Trump did not rule out accepting Putin’s help eventually, he urged his Russian counterpart to focus on ending the conflict that he’s an active participant in.
Putin “actually offered to help mediate, I said, ‘Do me a favor, mediate your own, let’s mediate Russia first, OK?’” Trump told reporters. “I said, ‘Vladimir, let’s mediate Russia first, you can worry about this later.’”
However, Putin, who has ties to both Israel and Iran, appears to be angling to seize this moment to present himself as a mediator on the world stage after years of being isolated over the Ukraine war, while stalling peace negotiations with Kyiv and continuing to attack the country.
During a press conference with international news agencies on Wednesday, Putin said his country has already put forward a settlement proposal to help bring the Israel-Iran conflict to a close.
“We are not imposing anything on anyone; we are simply talking about how we see a possible way out of the situation,” he said, according to The Associated Press. “But the decision, of course, is up to the political leadership of all these countries, primarily Iran and Israel.”
On his country’s war in Ukraine, Putin baselessly suggested Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is illegitimate because his term expired last year, even though the Ukraine’s Constitution clearly states that elections cannot take place while the country is under martial law.
Putin added that while he is still open to negotiating with Ukraine, his country will, one way or another, have to achieve its goal of demilitarizing its neighbor.
“We will not allow Ukraine to have armed forces that would threaten the Russian Federation and its people,” he said, according to AP. “And if we fail to reach a settlement, we will achieve our goals by military means.”
