Trump calls for peace in Ukraine, as Russians’ confidence in Putin’s leadership falls

The time is ripe for making peace in Ukraine, and the United States should contribute to the peace process right now, acting as a mediator, former US President Donald Trump said in a telephone interview with Reuters on Thursday.

“I think the biggest thing that the US should be doing right now is making peace – getting Russia and Ukraine together and making peace,” he said. “This is the time to do it,” he added.

The ex-US leader also believes Ukraine may be allowed to keep what it has “earned.”

“I think they would be entitled to keep much of what they’ve earned and I think that Russia likewise would agree to that. You need the right mediator, or negotiator, and we don’t have that right now,” he lamented.

Without either elaborating on what Trump meant under “earned” or citing the former US president directly, Reuters said that he did not rule out that Kiev might have to concede some territory to Russia. Everything would be “subject to negotiation” though, Trump added.

The former US leader has repeatedly said publicly that he would broker peace in Ukraine in 24 hours if he were to win the 2024 presidential election. However, he never explained exactly how he sees ending this conflict.

Meanwhile, Russian public’s level of confidence in President Vladimir Putin fell by 0.3 percentage points to 78.6% on June 19-25, according to a poll released by the All-Russia Public Opinion Research Center on Friday.

The poll involved 1,600 adult respondents.

“When asked if they trusted Putin, 78.6% of the poll’s participants said ‘yes’ (a 0.3 percentage point drop). Meanwhile, the share of people who approve of the way the president is handling his job fell by 1.3 percentage points to 74.8%,” the pollster said.

A total of 50.1% of those polled said they approved of the Russian government’s work (a 0.6 percentage point drop) and 51.7% approved of Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin’s work (a 1.6 percentage point decline). As many as 60.9% of respondents said they trusted Mishustin (a 0.9 percentage point fall).

As for the leaders of the parliamentary parties, 31.3% of those surveyed trust leader of the Russian Communist Party Gennady Zyuganov (a 4.4 percentage point decline), 31.6% trust leader of the A Just Russia – For Truth party Sergey Mironov (a 1 percentage point drop), 16.4% of the poll’s participants trust leader of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDPR) Leonid Slutsky (a 2 percentage point fall) and 7.6% said they trusted Chairman of the New People party Alexey Nechayev (a 1.3 percentage point drop).

The level of popular support for the United Russia party stood at 37.9% (a 1.4 percentage point drop). The level increased by 0.4% percentage points to 10.4% for the Russian Communist Party and by 0.6 percentage points to 9.2% for the Russian Liberal Democratic Party party. The A Just Russia – For Truth party saw a 0.2 percentage point decline to 5.6%, while popular support for the New People party dropped by 0.1 percentage points to 4.3%.

TASS