Virendra Pandit
New Delhi: While many world leaders greeted Donald Trump on his election victory, his ‘unfriended’ Russian President Vladimir Putin held back his congratulations on Wednesday, until later.
A media report from Moscow said the Kremlin reacted cautiously after Trump won, saying the US was still a ‘hostile state’ and that only time would tell if his rhetoric on ending the Ukraine war translated into reality.
Russia’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine triggered the biggest confrontation between Moscow and the West since the 1962 Cuban missile crisis when the then-Soviet Union and the US came close to a nuclear war.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Trump had made some important statements about wanting to end the Ukraine war during his campaign, but only time would tell if they led to action.
“Let us not forget that we are talking about an unfriendly country, which is both directly and indirectly involved in a war against our state (in Ukraine),” Peskov told reporters.
He said he was not aware of any plans by President Vladimir Putin to congratulate Trump on his victory and that relations with Washington were at a historic low.
“We have repeatedly said that the US can contribute to end this conflict. This cannot be done overnight, but… the US is capable of changing the trajectory of its foreign policy. Will this happen, and if so, how … we will see after (the US President’s inauguration in) January 2025.”
Interestingly, despite all this, the Kremlin-controlled media coverage during the US election campaign showed a preference for Trump.
The Russian Foreign Ministry said Moscow had no illusions about Trump, noting that there was what it called a bipartisan anti-Russian position among the US ruling elite designed to try to contain Russia.
“Russia will work with the new administration when it ‘takes up residence’ in the White House, fiercely defending Russian national interests and focusing on achieving all the set objectives of the special military operation (in Ukraine),” the ministry said.
“Our conditions are unchanged and are well known in Washington.”
However, Kirill Dmitriev, who heads the Russian sovereign wealth fund, struck a softer note, saying a Trump victory could be a chance to repair ties.
“This opens up new opportunities for resetting relations between Russia and the United States, said Dmitriev, a former Goldman Sachs banker who has previously had contacts with the Trump team.
Earlier, Trump promised to swiftly end the war in Ukraine, though he has not explained exactly how he would do that.
Putin said he is ready for talks, but that Russia’s territorial gains and claims must be accepted, something that the Ukrainian leadership has rejected as an unacceptable capitulation.
Russian forces are advancing at the fastest pace in at least a year in Ukraine and control about one-fifth of the war-torn country.
That includes Crimea, which Moscow annexed from Ukraine in 2014, about 80 percent of the Donbas – a coal-and-steel zone – and more than 70 percent of the Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions.
Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said on Wednesday that Trump’s win would probably be bad news for Ukraine, which relies on Washington as its top military backer.
“Trump has one useful quality for us: as a businessman to the core, he mortally dislikes spending money on various hangers-on,” said Medvedev.
The Ukrainians, however, reacted with a mix of trepidation and grim resolve to the news that Trump has won. He vowed to “stop wars” in a victorious speech Wednesday morning.
For, Ukraine would now likely have to look to its allies elsewhere in the West for support as it seeks to fend off a renewed Russian offensive backed by thousands of North Korean troops. Trump has repeatedly claimed he would end the war in Ukraine in one day and vowed to stop aid to Kyiv. The US is Ukraine’s top backer when it comes to funding, the media reported.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy recalled his “great meeting” with Trump in September and praised the Republican’s “commitment to the ‘peace through strength’ approach in global affairs.” But in a telling line, he added: “We rely on continued strong bipartisan support for Ukraine in the United States.”
Despite Ukraine’s repeated insistence throughout the US election campaign that it has bipartisan support in Washington, it was clear the prospects of a Trump victory weighed heavily on Kyiv. Trump’s Republican Party blocked aid to Ukraine for over nine months from October 2023 to April 2024, forcing Kyiv to deplete its wartime budget and leading to the loss of some of its most capable fighters.
Tymofiy Mylovanov, President of the Kyiv School of Economics, said in a social media post: “We’ll have to live in Trump’s world now. I am very skeptical that the war will end in 24 hours, as he promised. But we definitely won’t get bored.”
Trump’s unpredictability has left Ukrainians uncertain about what to expect from his second presidency.
He has repeatedly claimed to have a good relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin and derided Zelenskyy as “the greatest salesman in history.” But he has also claimed that he’d told Putin the US would bomb Moscow if he tried to attack Ukraine.
Reacting to the Trump win, China called for “peaceful coexistence” with the United States. Foreign ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning emphasized China’s commitment to mutual respect, peaceful coexistence, and win-win cooperation in handling China-US relations, stating, “We will continue to approach and handle China-US relations based on the principles of mutual respect, peaceful coexistence, and win-win cooperation.
She, however, refrained from directly commenting on Trump’s victory but acknowledged the US presidential election as an internal US affair, saying, “We respect the choice of the American people.”
Trump’s stance on China has been remarkably consistent since his 2016 campaign. Back then, he claimed that China’s growth came at the expense of the United States’ economic interests and vowed to launch a trade war, which he ultimately did. Fast-forward to the present, Trump still maintains that China’s success is rooted in “theft of intellectual property rights” and “unfair trade practices” that harm American interests.
China’s relations with the US have been strained since Trump’s presidency, marked by a trade war and tariffs imposed on Chinese goods due to alleged unfair practices, such as theft of US technology and currency manipulation. These tensions have persisted under Joe Biden’s administration, with Washington introducing new tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles, EV batteries, and solar cells.