US President-elect Donald Trump said Thursday that Russian President Vladimir Putin wanted to meet and that a meeting between the two was being planned.
He made the statement barely a week and a half before taking office, following his campaign vows to bring peace to Ukraine, which has been invaded by Russia since February 2022.
“He wants to meet, and we’re setting it up,” Trump said at a meeting with Republican governors at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida.
“President Putin wants to meet; he’s said that even publicly, and we have to get that war over with; that’s a bloody mess.”
Trump has never made any clear ideas for a cease-fire or a peace treaty, and he has frequently lambasted the United States’ huge military aid package to Ukraine.
Trump has also regularly insulted Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky as a “salesman,” raising eyebrows in Washington by rarely attacking Putin and even praising the Kremlin leader.
In addition to condemning President Joe Biden’s substantial military aid to Ukraine, Trump has questioned the US’s continued membership in NATO, the Western military alliance.
Since February 2022, the United States, led by Biden, has been Ukraine’s largest wartime backer, delivering military aid of more than $65 billion.
![Rev. Fr. Anthony Odiong, a US-based Nigerian Louisiana Catholic priest, was arrested in Florida on Tuesday for possessing child pornography, according to law authorities. The suspect is reportedly accused of many other cases of sexual assault. The Waco, Texas, Police Department announced in a Facebook post on Tuesday that officers detained Father Anthony Odiong in Ave Maria, Florida, with assistance from the United States Marshals Service. Waco police announced in March that they had received "credible information" about a sexual assault allegedly committed by Odiong in Texas in 2012. “During the subsequent investigation, a case of possession of child pornography was uncovered,” the police said. The priest was apprehended in Florida by the Caribbean Regional Fugitive Task Force. The Waco Police Department said that he will be extradited to Texas. Odiong had previously served in the Archdiocese of New Orleans before being removed as priest in December of last year due to controversy over homilies in which he claimed, among other things, that the Catholic Church was being taken over by "the gays." At the time, the priest was also accused of abusive behaviour; a Louisiana lady claimed in U.S. bankruptcy court that Odiong had committed both financial and sexual abuse against her. Prior to joining the New Orleans Archdiocese, Odiong served in at least two Texas parishes. On Tuesday, Waco police stated that during their sexual assault investigation, "the presence of other survivors was revealed." “Multiple women have come forward to tell similar experiences as the sexual assault survivor who reported the initial allegation,” the police department said. “Survivors’ experiences ranged from sexual assault and indecent assault, more commonly recognised as groping, and financial abuse, with some survivors experiencing every element of Anthony Odiong’s manipulation.” The police said they “believe there may be more survivors, and we wish to speak with anyone who [has] had similar encounters” with the priest. The Archdiocese of New Orleans issued a brief news release on Tuesday noting Odiong's arrest in Florida. The archdiocese “encourages anyone with any information to contact law enforcement,” the release said.](https://chronicle.ng/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/ezgif-6-4730550ede-450x300.jpg "Odiong: US-based Nigerian Catholic priest convicted over sexual assault")