By Man Faulconbridge and Andrew Osborn
MOSCOW (Reuters) – New alternatives to reset relations between Moscow and Washington have opened up, the influential head of Russia’s sovereign wealth fund mentioned on Wednesday after Donald Trump declared victory within the U.S. presidential election.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 triggered the most important confrontation between Moscow and the West because the 1962 Cuban missile disaster when the Soviet Union and the U.S. got here near nuclear conflict.
Each Russian and U.S. diplomats say relations between the world’s two largest nuclear powers have solely been worse in the course of the depths of the Chilly Struggle.
Kirill Dmitriev, CEO of Russia’s sovereign wealth fund and a senior determine in Russia’s political elite, mentioned that Trump’s staff had received the presidency and the Senate “despite a large-scale disinformation campaign directed against them”.
“Their convincing victory shows that ordinary Americans are tired of the unprecedented lies, incompetence, and malice of the Biden administration,” mentioned Dmitriev, a former Goldman Sachs banker who has beforehand had contacts with the Trump staff.
“This opens up new opportunities for resetting relations between Russia and the United States,” added Dmitriev, who has repeatedly met and provided recommendation to President Vladimir Putin.
Trump, a Republican, claimed victory within the 2024 presidential contest after Fox Information projected that he had defeated Democrat Kamala Harris, which might cap a shocking political comeback 4 years after he left the White Home.
In 2009, then U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton proposed a “reset” with Moscow, however resulting from an obvious translation error offered Moscow with a symbolic button labelled “overload” in Russian as an alternative of “reset”.
Regardless of the “reset”, relations between President Vladimir Putin and Barack Obama soured.
WAR IN UKRAINE
Trump, 78, has repeatedly promised to swiftly finish the conflict in Ukraine if elected, although he has not defined precisely how he would do this.
Putin has repeatedly mentioned he is able to discuss a doable finish to the conflict, however that Russia’s territorial features and claims have to be accepted, one thing that’s anathema to the Ukrainian management which has mentioned it could quantity to capitulation on their aspect.
Putin has additionally spoken of the necessity for Moscow to be given safety ensures.
Russian forces are advancing on the quickest tempo in not less than a yr in Ukraine and management about one fifth of the nation.
That features Crimea, which Moscow annexed from Ukraine in 2014, about 80% of the Donbas – a coal-and-steel zone comprising the Donetsk and Luhansk areas – and greater than 70% of the southern Zaporizhzhia and Kherson areas.
Forward of the U.S. election, Russian officers from President Vladimir Putin down had mentioned it made no distinction to Moscow who received the White Home, although Kremlin-guided state media protection confirmed a desire for Trump.
Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev mentioned on Wednesday that Trump’s win would in all probability be dangerous information for Ukraine, however that it was unclear how far Trump would be capable to reduce U.S. financing for the conflict.
“Trump has one useful quality for us: as a businessman to the core, he mortally dislikes spending money on various hangers–on and stupid hanger-on allies, on bad charity projects and on voracious international organisations,” Medvedev, a senior safety official, posted on his official Telegram account.
He mentioned that the Ukrainian authorities fell into the class of individuals Trump was more likely to not wish to spend an excessive amount of cash on and advised the Ukrainian management could be doing what it may to console itself if it was confirmed he had received.
“The question is how much Trump will be forced to give to the war. He’s stubborn, but the system is stronger,” mentioned Medvedev.
