Top Russian Diplomat Again Signals Readiness For Trump’s Ukraine Proposals
By Micke Eckel, Senior News Correspondent and Fletcher Alumni
Russia’s foreign minister signaled that Moscow was ready to hear from President-elect Donald Trump and advisers on proposals to resolve the Ukraine war, saying the incoming administration had “started to acknowledge the realities on the ground.”
The comments from Sergei Lavrov, made during an annual news conference on January 14, were the latest in a series of remarks by Russian officials ahead of potential cease-fire proposals for the conflict, which will mark its third anniversary next month.
Trump has said he wants to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin directly to try and resolve the war, which has killed or wounded more than 1 million troops on both sides.
Russia, whose troops currently occupy around 20 percent of Ukrainian territory, has justified its all-out February 2022 invasion of Ukraine in a series of shifting rationales, including preventing it from ever joining the NATO military alliance.
“We will be waiting for specific initiatives. President Putin has said on multiple occasions that he is ready to meet, but no proposals have been made yet,” Lavrov told reporters during the three-hour news conference.SEE ALSO:What A Ukraine Peace Plan Could Look Like
“President Trump also said that Putin wanted to meet and he believed they should meet but he first needed to take office.”
In the waning days of his tenure, President Joe Biden has rushed to ship billions of dollars in weaponry and other equipment to Ukraine, seeking to bolster its arsenals in the event that the incoming Trump administration scales back arms shipments.
In Kyiv, Ukrainian officials have also signaled an openness to hearing Trump’s peace proposals.
Speaking in an interview with Newsmax on January 13, Trump asserted that Putin was ready to meet soon after Trump’s inauguration on January 20.
“I know he wants to meet and I’m going to meet [him] very quickly,” he said.SEE ALSO:How The World Will Change In 2025
“I would’ve done it sooner but…you have to get into the office. For some of the things, you do have to be there.”
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters shortly before Lavrov’s event that there were no specifics agreed on yet for a Trump-Putin meeting.
Trump’s incoming national-security adviser, Mike Waltz, also emphasized a new diplomatic push to resolve the fighting. But he also signaled Ukrainian demands that Russia withdraw from all occupied territories was unlikely.
“I just don’t think it’s realistic to say we’re going to expel every Russian from every inch of Ukrainian soil, even Crimea,” Waltz told ABC News in an interview broadcast on January 12.
“President Trump has acknowledged that reality, and I think it’s been a huge step forward that the entire world is acknowledging that reality. Now let’s move forward.”
(This post is republished from RFERL.)