Russian President Vladimir Putin has no plans to congratulate Trump on his election victory yet, the Kremlin said on Wednesday — citing ongoing tensions with the U.S. over its military support for Ukraine.
“Let’s not forget that we’re talking about an unfriendly country that is both directly and indirectly involved in a war against our state,” said spokesman Dmitry Peskov in his daily briefing with reporters.
Trump has repeatedly voiced skepticism over continued U.S. military aid to Ukraine and said he would end the war in Ukraine “in 24 hours” after his election — feeding concerns in Kyiv and European capitals that Trump plans to force a political solution unpalatable to many Ukrainians.
It’s a position clearly cheered by some in Moscow.
The head of the foreign affairs committee in the Russian parliament, Leonid Slutsky, was quoted by the country's state-run news agency, RIA Novosti, saying that Trump's electoral victory could mean there was now "a chance for a more constructive approach to the Ukrainian conflict.”
Slutsky said the Trump campaign's rhetoric suggested a new administration is "not going to send more and more American taxpayers' money into the furnace of a proxy war against Russia.”
Yet Russian political observers cautioned Trump’s plans for a quick end to the Ukraine crisis bordered on unrealistic.
“In the case that attention and money from Washington will be diverted from Ukraine — that will have a big impact on the battlefield and probably create a composition for a new hypothetical deal,” says Fyodor Lukyanov, editor of Russia in Global Affairs magazine, in an interview with NPR.
"But not immediately,” he adds, noting it would be “very difficult” to imagine a wider improvement in U.S.-Russian relations without some resolution to "the Ukrainian crisis.”
Skepticism in Moscow is also fueled by memories of the election of 2016 — when Trump’s vows to improve relations tanked amid allegations of Russian attempts to interfere in the vote.
The Kremlin’s spokesman suggested it would wait and see until Trump actually took the oath of office before judging prospects for real change in Washington’s policies toward Russia.
“Whether it will be done and how it will be done, you and I will see after (Trump’s inauguration) in January,” said Peskov.
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