By Dmitry Antonov and Vladimir Soldatkin
MOSCOW (Reuters) -Russia says it has detected a shift from U.S. President-elect Donald Trump and his team towards recognising the “realities” on the ground in Ukraine, and sees this as a welcome sign as it prepares to study his plan for ending the war.
The Kremlin says it is open to a meeting between President Vladimir Putin and Trump, which the Republican said on Monday would take place “very quickly”.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Tuesday that Moscow was ready to study Trump’s ideas for ending the conflict in Ukraine once he takes office on Jan. 20.
Lavrov told a press conference that Russia welcomed the fact that the incoming administration had “started to mention the realities on the ground” more often. He referred to comments by both Trump and incoming national security adviser Mike Waltz.
Waltz told ABC on Sunday that it was clear the war must end somehow by diplomatic means.
He added: “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. 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.”
Trump last week acknowledged Moscow’s longstanding opposition to Ukraine’s ambition to join NATO, something he said would mean that “Russia has somebody right on their doorstep, and I could understand their feeling about that.”
Russia controls around a fifth of Ukraine after nearly three years of war and says any deal to end the conflict must take account of that. In September 2022 it proclaimed four regions of Ukraine that it only partly controls as part of its own territory, in an action overwhelmingly condemned by the United Nations General Assembly as an “attempted illegal annexation”.
SECURITY GUARANTEES FOR KYIV
Lavrov said that Russia was ready to discuss security guarantees “for the country that is now called Ukraine”, but Moscow would need its own assurances that it could not be threatened on its western borders with Europe.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said earlier this month that security guarantees for Kyiv would only be effective if the United States provided them, and that a ceasefire without such guarantees would merely give Russia time to rearm.
Zelenskiy is also still pressing for Ukraine to be allowed to join NATO – something that Russia rejects out of hand and says it went to war to prevent. Kyiv is concerned it could be forced into serious concessions if Trump withdraws military support from the United States in pursuit of his frequently repeated promise to bring the conflict to a swift conclusion.
Lavrov was also asked at the press conference about Trump’s comment last week that he would not rule out using military or economic action to acquire Greenland.
“First of all, we need to listen to the Greenlanders,” he replied.
Greenland is an overseas Danish territory, but Lavrov said it had the right to self-determination if it believed that Denmark did not represent the interests of its people.
(Additional reporting by Anastasia Teterevleva and Lucy Papachristou; Writing by Mark Trevelyan; Editing by Ros Russell)
