US President Joe Biden said on Thursday that he would be open to talking to Vladimir Putin for the first time since the invasion of Ukraine if the Russian leader really wanted to end the war.
Biden was speaking during a state visit by French President Emmanuel Macron, who has said he will talk to Putin again after his trip to Washington and warned against cutting off the Russian leader.
In a joint press conference with Macron, Biden said he had no immediate plans to contact Putin, but left the possibility open.
“I am ready to talk with Mr. Putin if he really is interested in deciding to find a way to end the war. They haven’t done that yet,” Biden said.
Biden said, “If that’s the case, in consultation with my French and my NATO friends, I’d be happy to sit down with Putin to see what he has in mind.”
Last rank, both Biden and Macron vowed long-term support for Ukraine as it battles Russian invaders.
“There is a way to end this war – the rational way. Putin to get out of Ukraine, number one. But it appears he is not,” Biden said.
Russian President Vladimir Putin attends a ceremony marking the 75th anniversary of the Federal Medical-Biological Agency in Moscow on November 9, 2022. (Sergey Boblyov / Sputnik / AFP)
“Bombing of nurseries, hospitals, children’s homes. It is sick what he is doing,” he said.
Biden said, “The idea that Putin is ever going to defeat Ukraine is inconceivable.” “They have miscalculated everything they calculated in the beginning.”
As Russia amassed troops on the Ukrainian border ahead of the February 24 invasion, both Biden and his top diplomat, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, spoke to Russia and warned of consequences if it attacked.
Blinken is believed to have spoken to his Russian counterpart, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, once after the invasion, but came up narrowly on a proposal to free the jailed Americans.
Macron said he planned to talk to Putin about the safety of the Zaporizhia plant in Ukraine, occupied by Russia.
“I will continue to talk to President Putin,” Macron said, calling for efforts to stop the escalation and achieve concrete results.
But like Biden, Macron said he would not push Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky into any peace plan he does not approve of.
“We will never urge Ukrainians to make compromises that would not be acceptable to them,” Macron said.
Macron said that while Zelensky has shown a “genuine desire” to advance peace, “our task should be to work together with him.”
Zelensky has pushed for Ukraine to take back all the territory occupied by Russia since the invasion.
