Trump compares Putin-Zelenskyy talks to ‘mixing oil and vinegar’

What Trump Said On Putin-Zelenskyy Meeting

US President Donald Trump described the difficulty of bringing Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Russian President Vladimir Putin to the negotiating table, comparing the effort to trying to mix “oil and vinegar.”

Speaking to reporters in Washington, Trump said, “We’re going to see if Putin and Zelensky will be working together. You know, it’s like oil and vinegar, a little bit. They don’t get along too well, for obvious reasons."

Trump expressed hope that Zelenskyy and Putin might eventually find common ground to bring the war in Ukraine to an end, pointing out that the ongoing conflict is costing around 7,000 lives each week, primarily among military personnel.

Donald Trump said, “We're going to see if Putin and Zelenskyy will be working together. You know, it's like oil and vinegar a little bit. They don't get along too well for obvious reasons, but we'll see. And then we'll see whether I need to be there. I'd rather not. I'd rather they have a meeting to see how they can do.”

He said, “But in the meantime, they continue to fight and they continue to kill people, which is very stupid because they're losing 7,000 people. I used to tell you five, now they're losing 7,000 people a week. Think of that, they're losing 7,000 people on average a week. Mostly soldiers.”'

He further stated that the Russia-Ukraine conflict has been the hardest to resolve, asserting that he had “stopped seven wars.”

"So, we want to see if we could stop it. I've stopped seven wars. I want to make this one I thought would have been in the middle of the pack in terms of difficulty, and it's turning out to be the most difficult," he said.