Putin ready for talks with Trump, won’t shift stance

President Vladimir Putin is ready to discuss Ukraine with Donald Trump but that does not mean he is willing to alter Moscow’s demands, the Kremlin said on Friday.

Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov made the remarks after being asked at his daily news briefing if Putin’s readiness to talk to the Republican president-elect reflected a willingness to change those demands. “The president has never said that the goals of the special military operation are changing. On the contrary, he has repeatedly said that they remain the same,” Peskov said.

“All this concerns the security interests of our country, the security interests of the Russian people living there. Therefore, there was no talk of any changes here.” Putin on June 14 set out his terms for an end to the war: Ukraine would have to drop its NATO ambitions and withdraw all of its troops from all of the territory of four regions claimed by Russia.

Ukraine rejected that, saying it would be tantamount to capitulation, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has put forward a “victory plan” that includes requests for additional military support from the West. On the campaign trail, Trump criticised the scale of US military and financial support for Kyiv and said he could end the war within 24 hours, without saying how. Zelenskiy has congratulated Trump, but said he does not know how the American plans to end the conflict.

Israel appoints new us ambassador

Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu appointed Yechiel Leiter, an official who previously served as chief of staff in the finance ministry, as the next Israeli ambassador to the US.