Russia says ready for ‘hard bargaining’ with Trump but US must make first step
Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov urged Washington to take efforts to normalise ties on the basis of ‘mutual respect and equal rights’
The United States must make the first move in improving ties with Russia after years of failing to listen to the Kremlin and misguided policies intended to inflict a “strategic defeat” on Moscow, a senior Russian diplomat said on Wednesday.
Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov also said it was wrong to base a foreign policy on the need to “come to an agreement with the White House at any price”.
Relations between Russia and the US have plunged to lows not seen in decades due to Moscow’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
But since the election and inauguration of Donald Trump, Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin has made a point of describing the US president as smart and pragmatic and said he would like to meet him soon.
In a commentary on the foreign ministry’s website, Ryabkov said the Kremlin had long sought to be a partner with the West, “but no one was listening or, in theory, wanted to listen”.
“And that is because the underlying aim was to weaken the geopolitical rival to the maximum,” he said.
Russia, he said, had regained “its lawful place in world geopolitics by frustrating the plans of Joe Biden’s administration … to inflict a ‘strategic defeat’ on Moscow in a hybrid war ‘to the last Ukrainian.’”
