““Putin likely takes it for granted that the Trump administration will yield to the interests and preferences of the Kremlin without any concessions or benefits in return.””, — write: www.radiosvoboda.org
“The Kremlin is trying to dictate the terms of any potential “peace” talks with Ukraine ahead of the inauguration of US President-elect Donald Trump. The way the Kremlin is trying to establish its terms for negotiations strongly suggests that Russia’s goals remain the same and still boil down to the complete surrender of Ukraine,” the researchers report.
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According to their observations, Moscow shows no desire to make concessions to the Trump administration, as well as to his predecessor Joe Biden. In particular, on November 13, the spokeswoman of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Maria Zakharova, stated that Western officials are allegedly lying about their desire to achieve peace in Ukraine, and the only way to achieve this is to stop Western military aid to Ukraine.
The Institute also drew attention to the statements of the head of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Sergey Lavrov, who rejected proposals to freeze the conflict along the front line.
Zakharova’s and Lavrov’s statements also undermine Putin’s recent attempts to feign interest in a willingness to “restore” US-Russian relations with the new administration of the US president and instead indicate that Putin likely takes it for granted that the Trump administration will yield to the interests and preferences of the Kremlin without any concessions or benefits in return,” the authors of the report add.
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They draw attention to the fact that these statements were made against the background of reports of the Trump administration’s plans to appoint an ambassador for Ukraine to negotiate an end to the war.
On November 8, Russian President Vladimir Putin declared that he was open to dialogue with Trump. The Washington Post on November 10 wrote that Putin and Trump had a phone conversation on November 7, and the US president-elect urged Putin “not to escalate the war in Ukraine” and reminded him of the “significant presence” of the American military in Europe. The Kremlin officially denied the very fact of the conversation, Trump’s team also did not comment on this matter.