The Kremlin has said it ‘absolutely’ agrees with Donald Trump after the US president warned Volodymyr Zelensky to ‘move fast’ to end the conflict in Ukraine.
‘[The Trump administration] talk about the need to establish peace as soon as possible and do it through negotiations,’ Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told journalists.
‘We have also already mentioned that this position is more favourable to us than the previous administration, and that here we absolutely agree with the American administration.’
Peskov went on to hit out at the Biden administration, claiming that the previous team in Washington ‘did not declare any goals to initiate a peace process’ and spoke ‘only about war.’
Trump yesterday launched an eviscerating attack on President Zelensky, calling the Ukrainian leader ‘a modestly successful comedian’ and ‘a dictator without elections’.
In what appeared to be a thinly-veiled threat, Trump went on to say that ‘Zelensky better move fast or he is not going to have a Country left.’
The extraordinary outburst came after Zelensky accused the US President of falling for Russian fake news, with Trump suggesting yesterday that Ukraine was to blame for Moscow’s illegal invasion of the country three years ago.
Speaking today, Peskov reiterated that relations between the US and Russia were on the path to improving and revealed that Moscow had agreed to resume dialogue with Washington on all issues regarding the war in Ukraine.
‘It was decided to start resuming Russian-American dialogue on all parameters,’ he said, after the two sides held talks in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday.
A possible new prisoner exchange between Russia and the US was on the agenda, he added, as part of Moscow and Washington’s agreement to start work on restoring relations at all levels.
Zelensky said Tuesday’s talks between US and Russian officials had come as a ‘surprise’ to Kyiv, amid fears that Ukraine is being frozen out of negotiations which could result in it being forced by Washington to accept an unfavourable peace deal.
Referring to the talks, Zelensky said yesterday: ‘I believe that the United States helped Putin to break out of years of isolation… All of this has no positive impact on Ukraine.’
Putin said in his comments today that Trump had told him that Ukraine will take part in future talks, adding that there was no need for a ‘hysterical’ reaction to yesterday’s meeting.
‘We are not imposing anything on anyone. We are ready, I have already said this a hundred times – if they want, please, let these negotiations take place. And we will be ready to return to the table for negotiations,’ he said. ‘No one is excluding Ukraine.’
Asked by reporters about the possibility of a new prisoner swap, Peskov said today that US-Russia talks in Riyadh had contributed to a general rapprochement between the two superpowers.
At least 10 Americans remain behind bars in Russia, including two who have been designated as ‘wrongfully detained’ by Washington.
Moscow freed an American citizen, Kalob Byers, days before the Russian and American delegations met in the Saudi capital.
Earlier this month, Russia freed Marc Fogel, a U.S. schoolteacher who had been serving a 14-year sentence for drug smuggling after being caught at a Moscow airport with a small amount of marijuana.
He was freed in exchange for Alexander Vinnik, a Russian cybercrime boss who had pleaded guilty to money laundering, after being extradited from Greece.