MOSCOW (Reuters) -Russia sees a small window of opportunity to do deals with Donald Trump but Moscow is making preparations for President Vladimir Putin’s future discussions with the new U.S. president, Russia’s diplomat overseeing U.S. relations said on Wednesday.
Trump, in his inauguration speech, said he was saved by God from an assassin’s bullet in June to “make America Great again” and vowed that he would make the United States “far more exceptional than ever before”.
Since being sworn in, Trump has said that he wants to end the war in Ukraine and that he would likely impose sanctions on Russia if Putin refused to negotiate about ending the war in Ukraine.
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov, who oversees U.S. relations and arms control, told the pre-eminent Russian think tank on U.S. and Canadian affairs that the window of opportunity existed but that it was small.
“Compared to the hopelessness in every aspect of the previous White House chief (President Joe Biden), there is a window of opportunity today, albeit a small one,” Ryabkov told the Institute for U.S. and Canadian Studies in Moscow.
“It’s therefore important to understand with what and whom we will have to deal, how best to build relations with Washington, how best to maximise opportunities and minimise risks,” Ryabkov was quoted as saying by Interfax.
Putin has repeatedly said that he is ready to negotiate an end to the war in Ukraine but that Russia’s current control of 20% of Ukrainian territory will have to be accepted and that Ukraine must remain neutral.
Ryabkov was later quoted by the TASS state news agency as saying that Russia was making preparations for contacts between Putin and Trump but that nothing has been agreed upon yet.
“Probably when we hear something more clear and concrete from Washington, then we’ll get down to coordinating schedules and organisational points,” Ryabkov said.
(Reporting by Reuters; Writing by Lucy Papachristou; Editing by Mark Trevelyan)
