Thu, November 28, 2024 at 4:11 PM EST

Vladimir Putin has praised Donald Trump as an “intelligent” man who “will find a solution” to the war in Ukraine.

Speaking at a security summit in Kazakhstan on Thursday, Putin said he was ready for peace talks with Ukraine “without preconditions”, but on the same terms he laid out over the summer.

The Russian president said in June he would end the war if Kyiv agreed to drop its Nato ambitions and hand over four Ukrainian regions claimed by Moscow.

Ukraine has rejected this proposal as tantamount to surrender.

According to The Washington Post, Putin and Mr Trump have spoken about the future of Ukraine since the Nov 5 US election.

Voenacher/Telegram

Mr Trump was said to have warned the Russian leader during a phone call not to escalate the war and expressed an interest in a follow-up conversation.

The incoming US president is understood to be working on several proposals to end the war.

According to three Trump staffers, one of these plans could see European and British troops called on to enforce an 800-mile buffer zone between the Russian and Ukrainian armies.

The current front line would be frozen in place and Ukraine would agree to shelve its ambition to join Nato for 20 years.

In exchange, the US would pump Ukraine full of weapons to deter Russia from restarting the war.

The US would neither contribute troops to patrol and enforce the resulting buffer zone nor finance its mission.

Putin also on Thursday expressed concern for Mr Trump’s safety after attempts on his life during the US election campaign.

The Kremlin launched a massive overnight attack on Wednesday on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure in what it said was revenge for Kyiv’s Storm Shadow and Atacms missile strikes on Russia.

More than a million people were left without power, Ukrainian officials said, after Russia fired about 90 missiles and 100 drones at targets across the country.

Putin later threatened to devastate Kyiv with Russia’s new Oreshnik missile, which was first launched at the city of Dnipro last week.

The Oreshnik is an intermediate range ballistic missile with multiple warheads and is thought to be nuclear capable.

Moscow has so far largely avoided Ukrainian government buildings in Kyiv, but said that it was now considering hitting “decision-making centres” in the Ukrainian capital.

Putin claimed that an attack using several Oreshniks “would be comparable to the use of nuclear weapons”.

He hinted that he would be prepared to use nuclear weapons against Ukraine if the West were to give Kyiv its own weapons of mass destruction.

“If the country which we are essentially at war with now becomes a nuclear power, what do we do?” Putin said.

“In this case, we will use all, I want to emphasise this, precisely all means of destruction available to Russia,” he added.

The New York Times reported last week that some unidentified Western officials suggested Joe Biden, the US president, could give Ukraine nuclear weapons before he leaves office.

Alexander Lukashenko, the Belarusian president and key Putin ally who was also at the Kazakhstan summit, said: “Clinging to an elusive dominance, the West is increasingly speaking the language of arms, turning a blind eye to the threats of nuclear confrontation fraught with the destruction of the entire planet.”

Meanwhile, Volodymyr Zelensky, the Ukrainian president, approved Kyiv’s 2025 budget plans for 60 per cent of all expenditure to go towards defence and security.

Some financial support

A total of $54 billion (£43 billion), out of a general budget of $87 billion (£69 billion), will go towards defence and security, according to documents published by the finance ministry.

By comparison, Moscow’s draft budget earmarks $125 billion (£100 billion) for defence and $32 billion (£26 billion) for “domestic security”.

Ukraine will see some financial support in the form of €18.1 billion (£15 billion) in frozen Russian assets, which the EU agreed to send to Kyiv on Thursday.

Denys Shmyhal, Ukraine’s prime minister, said: “Such a step is not only support [for Ukraine] but also a precedent for holding Russia accountable for its crimes and starting the process of making the aggressor pay for its brutal war.”

Mr Trump on Wednesday nominated Keith Kellogg, a former national security adviser and retired US lieutenant general, to be his special envoy to Ukraine and Russia.

In April 2024, Kellogg co-authored a strategy paper saying that the US should negotiate a ceasefire in Ukraine.

The paper said that the US should continue to arm Ukraine but only if it participates in peace talks with Russia.

Additionally, Nato leaders should offer to shelve Ukraine’s application while granting Russia some sanctions relief if it signs a peace agreement with Ukraine.