Financial Times: Putin will demand NATO's withdrawal from Russia's borders during negotiations with Trump.

The Russian dictator will demand a review of NATO's presence near Russian borders during upcoming talks with the elected President of the United States, Donald Trump.

The approach for these negotiations has not yet been determined by the team of the elected U.S. president, and the timeline for ending the conflict has shifted from "24 hours" to six months, reports Financial Times.

On Thursday, Trump announced that his team has begun preparations for a meeting with Putin to discuss options for ending the war.

For Putin, the primary goal in the negotiations is to establish new security agreements that would prevent Ukraine from joining NATO, while the alliance would partially reduce its presence near Russian borders.

This information was shared by a former high-ranking Kremlin official and another individual who discussed this matter with Putin.

"He [Putin] wants to change the rules of the international order to eliminate threats to Russia. He is very concerned about how the world will look after the war," says a Kremlin source.

"Trump, in any case, wants to scale down NATO," the FT source added, implying that Trump has threatened to withdraw the U.S. from the alliance or to withhold support from countries that spend too little on defense. "The world is changing; anything can happen."

The Kremlin issued an ultimatum to Western countries back in December 2021, prior to the invasion of Ukraine, demanding, among other things, the return of NATO military infrastructure to its 1997 borders.

On Thursday, Trump did not specify where the meeting with Putin might take place, only stating that Putin "wants to meet, and we will arrange it." He urged everyone to wait for details until his official inauguration as President of the United States on January 20.

Meanwhile, two European officials told FT that discussions with Trump's team in recent weeks have shown that they have not yet decided how to resolve the conflict, and support for Ukraine will continue after January 20.

"The entire Trump team is focused on strength and looking strong, so they are changing their approach to Ukraine," said one of the officials.

According to him, the new administration is also wary of comparisons to the hasty withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan under Joe Biden, and Trump's camp would not want a similar outcome in Ukraine.

During his campaign, Trump promised to end the war "within 24 hours," even before taking office. This week, he named "six months" as a more realistic target. His special envoy for Ukraine, Keith Kellogg, told Fox News that on a "personal and professional" level, he aims to try to find a resolution to the conflict within 100 days of Trump's inauguration.