Russia appeared to ready itself for talks on the future of Ukraine with United States President-elect Donald Trump ahead of his swearing-in on Monday.
“No special conditions are needed for this. What is required is the mutual intent and political will to have a dialogue,” said Russian President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Saturday.
But Russia expressed its parameters very quickly.
Putin aide Nikolai Patrushev told Russian news outlet KP that a Ukraine settlement should be reached by the US and Russia, without Ukraine and without the European Union.
Asked whether territorial concessions would be made, he said “This is not even up for discussion.”
Moscow appears confident that Trump’s world view is similar to its own and conducive to a deal that sidelines Europe.
Patrushev drew a parallel between Moscow’s landgrab in Ukraine and Trump’s assertion in a January 7 press conference that the US should absorb Greenland and resume control of Panama, saying “we need them for economic security”.
Trump also posted a map of the US and Canada as one country, calling their border an “artificially drawn line” and their union “much better for national security” – arguments identical to those used by the Kremlin to wage war on Ukraine.
“Trump outlined his interests in relation to Greenland, the Panama Canal, Mexico, and Canada,” Patrushev said. “Redrawing the world map to suit his interests and interfering in the affairs of countries on different continents is an American tradition.”
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