US president says he will 'probably' also be talking to his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin
US President Donald Trump on Friday said he will "probably" meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy next week.
"I will probably be meeting with President Zelenskyy next week, and I will probably be talking to (Russian) President (Vladimir) Putin," Trump told reporters in the Oval Office while hosting Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba.
Trump also said he wants to see an end to the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine, which is now nearly three years old.
"They're killing so many people, yet losing millions of people on a battlefield … I'd like to see it end just on a human basis. It's terrible," he said.
He reiterated that the "ridiculous" war would have never started if he were president when it started in early 2022.
"I would very much like to help out. One of the things we're looking at with President Zelenskyy is having the security of their assets. They have assets underground, rarer and other things, but primarily rarer," Trump said. Earlier this week Trump suggested that he would want access to Ukraine's rare mineral deposits in exchange for US aid.
Trump said Vice President JD Vance "may" meet with Zelenskyy next week during his visit to Europe, where he will take part in the Munich Security Conference in Germany.
Asked if his meeting with Zelenskyy would be in Washington DC, Trump replied it "could be Washington... Well, I'm not going there."
On his Russian counterpart, Trump said he has "always" had a "good" relationship with Putin.
Trump has traditionally been cool on aid to Ukraine, and was impeached in 2019 over allegedly withholding aid to Ukraine in exchange for pressuring Zelenskyy to give him political favors. In the impeachment trial, he was acquitted of those charges.
