US President Donald Trump on Friday played down the possibility of abducting his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin, just as he captured Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro a week ago.
Asked whether he would ever order a mission to capture Putin, Trump said, “I don’t think it’s going to be necessary.”
“I think we’re going to have and have always had a great relationship with him. I am very disappointed. I settled eight wars. I thought this would be in the middle of the pack or maybe one of the easier ones,” Trump said while talking to reporters at the White House.
This comes days after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy suggested that the US president could be planning a similar plan for Putin as Maduro.
Trump disagreed with Zelenskyy, saying such a sanction was “not necessary,” though he said he was “very disappointed” with Putin.
Trump also claimed that Ukraine and Russia are close to a settlement and said, “Last month, they lost 31,000 people. Many of them were Russian soldiers. The Russian economy is doing poorly. I think we are going to end up getting it settled. I wish we could have done it quicker because a lot of people are dying, mostly soldiers.”
Earlier, Zelenskyy, in a veiled reference to Putin, had said that if this is how a “dictator” must be treated, then the “United States knows what to do next.”
Meanwhile, the Russian president is facing several arrest warrants by the International Criminal Court over alleged war crimes in Ukraine.
This comes after Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, were captured in Caracas and flown out of the country in a joint operation involving intelligence agencies and US law enforcement.
According to Venezuela’s interior minister Diosdado Cabello, Maduro was wounded in the leg, while his wife, Cilia Flores—who was detained alongside him—suffered a head injury during the raid.
Maduro’s Vice President Delcy Rodríguez has now assumed the presidency of Venezuela.
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