United States former Secretary of State and 2016 Democratic nominee for president, Hillary Clinton, has said that if President Donald Trump plays a crucial role in ending the ongoing war in Ukraine ahead of his scheduled summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Anchorage, Alaska, on Friday.
“Honestly, if he could bring about the end to this terrible war, if he could end it without putting Ukraine in a position where it had to concede its territory to the aggressor, could really stand up to Putin — something we haven’t seen, but maybe this is the opportunity — if President Trump were the architect of that, I’d nominate him for a Nobel Peace Prize,” Clinton told Jessica Tarlov on her Raging Moderates podcast released on Friday.
“Because my goal here is to not allow capitulation to Putin,” she added.
Trump has expressed his desire to be nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize, an award won by his longtime political rival and first term successor, former President Barack Obama, in 2009 for his "extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples."
Putin teased a potential deal on nuclear arms control while crediting Trump's administration for being "energetic" and "sincere" in its approach to end the war in Ukraine ahead of the Alaska summit.
Putin told senior officials that the meeting between Russia and the United States could “create long-term conditions for peace between our countries, as well as in Europe, and in the world as a whole" during a briefing on Thursday (August 14) via CNN.
A potential deal could happen if both sides can “reach agreements in the area of control over strategic offensive weapons,” according to Putin.
The U.S. and Russia had previously signed the New START pact in 2011 capping strategic nuclear weapons deployments, which is set to expire on February 5, 2026.
The treaty limits both countries to 1,550 deployed nuclear warheads and 700 deployed missiles and bombers.
New START has, however, been tested since Russia invaded Ukraine, as well as Putin's public claims that his country would no longer comply with its requirements in February. as well as Putin repeatedly showing that he cannot be trusted and Trump growing increasingly frustrated with him publicly, having accused him of "tapping" their conversations.
“We get a lot of bulls–t thrown at us by Putin, if you want to know the truth,” Trump said last month via the New York Post. “He’s very nice all of the time, but it turns out to be meaningless.”
