US President-elect Donald Trump has confirmed that a meeting is being set up between him and Russian President Vladimir Putin, according to Politico on Friday.
While giving no specific timeline details, Trump said of Putin from his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, "He wants to meet and we are setting it up."
The day prior Trump had also said "President Putin wants to meet." The Kremlin has yet to confirm the talks, but has repeatedly said Putin remains open to the possibility.
"He has said that even publicly and we have to get that war over with. That's a bloody mess," Trump had said in the Thursday part of the remarks.
Moscow's newest Friday statement reaffirmed openness to such a meeting, "but that any concrete steps to set up such talks could be made only once Mr. Trump is sworn into office on Jan. 20," The New York Times notes.
"We need a mutual desire and political willingness to engage in a dialogue," Putin spokesman Dmitri Peskov told reporters. "We see that Mr. Trump also declares his readiness to solve issues via dialogue. We welcome that."
Peskov added that Russia's understanding is that there is a "mutual readiness for a meeting" but that "it looks like things will start to move after Trump enters the Oval Office."
The Kremlin stopped short of specifying how soon such a meeting might take place or whether a final go-ahead has been given.
This also comes after earlier in the week Trump said he was sympathetic to Moscow's critiques of NATO expansion:
Speaking at a news conference on Tuesday, Mr. Trump said that he was sympathetic with the Russian position that Ukraine should never join NATO, one of the main conditions put forward by the Kremlin to end the war.
Prior reporting on the 'Trump peace plan' suggests that the US side will offer Ukraine a twenty-year waiting period before it can hope to join NATO; however, Moscow has rejected even this possibility as a non-starter.
Without doubt, Moscow sees itself in the driver's seat - even as Ukraine tries to inflict as much damage as possible through drone and missile strikes on Russian territory. Russian forces have made weeks of rapid gains in the Donetsk, including having captured another key industrial town just this past week.