Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said on Nov. 8 that Russian President Vladimir Putin is keen to start talks with President-elect Donald Trump on putting an end to the war in Ukraine—but that Russia’s demands for ending the conflict remain unchanged.
“We all heard Mr. Trump say during his election campaign that he intended to reach out to Putin himself. This is why the willingness and openness are there, and the Russian head of state emphasized this yesterday,” Peskov told reporters on Friday, according to Russian state-run media Tass.
Speaking at an international forum in Sochi, Russia, Putin said that what Trump has said “about the desire to restore relations with Russia, to help end the Ukrainian crisis” should be taken seriously.
The Kremlin spokesperson clarified on Friday that while Putin expressed readiness for dialogue on a settlement, his key demands haven’t changed. Putin “has never once said that the goals of the special military operation are changing,” Peskov said. “On the contrary, he has repeatedly said that they remain the same,” the spokesperson said, adding that Russia’s actions in Ukraine are driven by the security interests of the country and Russian citizens in the region.
“As soon as Kyiv says it is ready to make this decision, begins the actual pull-out of forces from those regions and formally declares the abandonment of its plans to join NATO, we will instantly, that very second, order a cease-fire and begin negotiations,” Putin told diplomats at the Russian foreign ministry in Moscow on June 14.
These terms have been rejected by Ukraine, which views them as equivalent to capitulation. In November, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy unveiled what he described as a “victory plan“ that would include a path to NATO membership, security guarantees by Western powers, and permission for Kyiv to use NATO-supplied long-range weapons to strike targets within Russia to degrade Moscow’s offensive capabilities. The Kremlin has warned that the plan might lead to a direct conflict between NATO and Russia.
Trump has vowed to bring a quick end to the war in Ukraine if elected, saying he would leverage his established relationships with both Putin and Zelenskyy to push the warring leaders into a peace deal. While Trump hasn’t disclosed detailed plans for a settlement, he said at the end of September that he would negotiate a deal that’s “good for both sides.”
Zelenskyy, for his part, said Thursday that it would be “unacceptable” for Kyiv and “suicidal” for all of Europe to make any concessions to Russia, and that any talk of a cease-fire is “dangerous” without firm security guarantees.
“Such a cease-fire prepares the ground for continued occupation of Ukraine and the destruction of our independence and sovereignty,” Zelenskyy said during a European Political Community summit in Budapest on Nov. 7.
During his remarks in Sochi on Thursday, Putin said that he wasn’t opposed to initiating the call to Trump himself, with Peskov adding on Friday that the timing or agenda of a Putin–Trump call remained unclear.
