Photo: kremlin.ru
Vladimir Putin has preemptively congratulated Donald Trump on returning to the White House during a meeting of the Russian Security Council on Monday, hours before Trump’s inauguration is due to take place in Washington.
In a video published by the Kremlin, Putin welcomed comments made by Trump and his team “about their readiness to resume direct contacts with Russia”, which he said had been broken off by the Biden administration “through no fault” of Moscow.
In particular, Putin said that Russia was “open to dialogue” with the US administration on Ukraine, stressing the importance of addressing “the root causes of the crisis”, which he said Moscow had spelled out “many times”, likely referring to Moscow’s demands that Ukraine drastically cut back ties with NATO and become a neutral state as a prerequisite for any peace deal.
Putin also voiced a series of ultimatum-like demands in June, including the withdrawal of all Ukrainian troops from the entirety of Ukraine’s Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions, which Russia formally annexed in 2022 but over which it has never had full control.
Once again refusing to describe the invasion of Ukraine as a war, Putin added that the “settlement of the situation” should not be aimed at a “brief truce” or “a respite for the forces to regroup and rearm”, but rather “a long-term peace based on respect for the legitimate interests of all people living in the region”.
Since Trump’s victory in the US election in November, the Kremlin has repeatedly said Moscow was “open” to contacts with Washington, with Trump telling reporters last Thursday that Putin wanted to meet with him and that his team was working to make that happen.
