President Trump said Tuesday that a planned meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin at the G-20 summit is now pending following the Russian seizure of three Ukrainian naval ships and 24 sailors last week.
The president said he is awaiting a “full report” from his national security team about Russia’s seizure of the Ukrainian ships and the team’s findings will be “very determinative” as to whether or not he meets with Putin later this week in Argentina.
“Maybe I won’t have the meeting. Maybe I won’t even have the meeting … I don’t like that aggression. I don’t want that aggression at all,” Trump told The Washington Post Tuesday evening.
The president’s statement was similar to what he told reporters Monday as he was leaving for a rally in Mississippi.
“We don’t like what’s happening and hopefully it will get straightened out. I know Europe is not — they are not thrilled. They’re working on it, too,” Trump told reporters outside the White House Monday afternoon. “We’re all working on it together.”
The Ukrainian military announced Sunday that Russian boats opened fire upon and seized three Ukrainian naval ships and 24 sailors. The two nations have been in an ongoing standoff in the Kerch Strait — a waterway of strategic importance for both countries.
The Kerch Strait connects the Sea of Azov and the Black Sea and runs between both Ukraine and Russia. It is important to Ukraine for economic reasons, allowing for the flow of Ukrainian goods inside and outside of the country. The strait is also the quickest access point for Russia to Crimea, which Russia annexed in 2014 during the Obama administration. Since the annexation, Russia constructed a bridge over the Kerch Strait.
Trump also questioned the CIA’s findings that the Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman ordered the assassination of Washington Post contributor and U.S. resident Jamal Khashoggi.
“Maybe he did and maybe he didn’t,” Trump said Tuesday. “But he denies it. And people around him deny it. And the CIA did not say affirmatively he did it, either, by the way. I’m not saying that they’re saying he didn’t do it, but they didn’t say it affirmatively.”
The CIA has said the crown prince ordered the murder of Khashoggi and the agency briefed other parts of the U.S. government on its findings.
Bin Salman previously claimed his government had “nothing to hide” in relation to Khashoggi’s disappearance. Saudi Arabia’s government has denied Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman had any involvement in Khashoggi’s death, clashing with claims by the Turkish government that the crown prince ordered a hit on the journalist.
