By Gram Slattery and Helen Reid
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President-elect Donald Trump said on Tuesday he sympathized with the Russian position that Ukraine should not be part of NATO, and he lamented that he will not meet Russian President Vladimir Putin before his inauguration.
Speaking at a news conference at his Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida, Trump also blamed outgoing Democratic President Joe Biden for allegedly changing the U.S. position on NATO membership for Ukraine.
“A big part of the problem is, Russia – for many, many years, long before Putin – said, ‘You could never have NATO involved with Ukraine.’ Now, they’ve said that. That’s been, like, written in stone,” Trump said.
“And somewhere along the line Biden said, ‘No. They should be able to join NATO.’ Well, then Russia has somebody right on their doorstep, and I could understand their feelings about that.”
Members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization have officially expressed support for Ukraine’s eventual membership since the Bucharest Summit of 2008, and the Biden administration continues to support Ukraine’s eventual NATO accession, though Ukraine has never been extended an invitation.
Trump’s aides and allies generally oppose NATO membership for Ukraine, at least in the foreseeable future, seeing it as an unnecessary provocation toward Moscow.
Ukraine’s leaders, meanwhile, have aggressively pushed for a NATO invitation, saying it is key to deterring further Russian aggression.
Trump had said on the campaign trail before the Nov. 5 election that he could solve the war in Ukraine before even taking office. While he still says he will quickly solve it, he has largely dropped that line, and he is now due to take office in less than two weeks.
“I hope to have six months. No, I would think, I hope long before six months,” Trump said, when asked if he could solve the war within half a year.
“Look, Russia is losing a lot of young people, and so is Ukraine, and it should have never been started.”
He also complained that he could not meet with Putin until after he takes office on Jan. 20. He said, without elaborating, that such a meeting would be inappropriate.
“I know that Putin would like to meet,” Trump said. “I don’t think it’s appropriate that I meet until after the 20th which I hate, because, you know, every day people are being – many, many young people are being killed.”
(Reporting by Gram Slattery; Editing by Ross Colvin and Daniel Wallis)
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