Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday praised the Trump administration’s “energetic” and “sincere” push to end the war in Ukraine — and hinted the U.S. and Russia could reach a nuclear arms control deal at their summit in Alaska on Friday.
Speaking to senior officials, Putin said the Anchorage talks could “create long-term conditions for peace between our countries, as well as in Europe, and in the world as a whole.” The current American administration, he added, is making “quite energetic and sincere efforts to stop the hostilities, stop the crisis and reach agreements that are of interest to all parties involved in this conflict,” according to CNN.
A peace deal, Putin said, may be within reach if Washington and Moscow can “reach agreements in the area of control over strategic offensive weapons” — a reference to nuclear arms.
The U.S. and Russia signed the New START treaty in 2011, capping strategic nuclear weapons deployments; it expires on Feb. 5, 2026. The pact has been battered by Russia’s war in Ukraine and left on life support since February, when Putin announced Moscow would no longer comply with its terms.
The treaty limits each side to 1,550 deployed nuclear warheads and 700 deployed missiles and bombers, and calls for mutual site inspections — inspections paused in 2020 during COVID-19 and never resumed.
Putin, a former KGB operative and master manipulator, has shown time and again he cannot be trusted. Trump, meanwhile, has grown visibly impatient, accusing the Russian leader of stringing him along and railing against his “bulls–t.”
More over at The New York Post:
Putin heaps praise on ‘sincere’ Trump, hints Russia and US could strike nuclear arms deal https://t.co/3CA4Hu9UQ0 pic.twitter.com/VSem4bY2Dp
— New York Post (@nypost) August 14, 2025
