The Kremlin said Friday that Russia remains open to a meeting between President Vladimir V. Putin and President-elect Donald J. Trump, but that concrete steps toward setting up such negotiations could only be taken once Mr. Trump will be sworn in on January 20.
Responding to comments made Thursday by Mr. Trump, who said Mr. Putin wanted to meet with him to discuss the war in Ukraine, the Kremlin spokesman reaffirmed Russia’s long-standing official position that Moscow is ready to discuss.
“We need a mutual desire and political will to engage in dialogue,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry S. Peskov told reporters. “We see that Mr. Trump also declares his readiness to resolve problems through dialogue. “We welcome it.”
Mr Peskov added that the Kremlin believes there is “mutual preparation for a meeting”, but, he added, “it seems that things will start to move after Trump enters the Oval Office “.
Mr. Peskov did not confirm that Mr. Putin had requested a meeting with Mr. Trump or that a meeting was being arranged, as Mr. Trump said Thursday evening.
While asserting territorial claims to its five regions in Ukraine, the Kremlin has insisted it would prefer diplomacy to war.
Ukraine and some of its Western allies have questioned Russia’s seriousness in its negotiating proposal and said the Kremlin’s conditions actually represented a demand for Ukraine to capitulate.
Having been largely isolated from the West for nearly three years since the invasion of Ukraine, a meeting with the US president would represent an opportunity for Mr Putin to negotiate with a friendlier US administration.
Mr. Trump has repeatedly said he could resolve the Russia-Ukraine war within 24 hours of taking office, without saying how, but this week suggested that it could take up to six months.
Speaking at a news conference on Tuesday, Trump said he favored Russia’s position that Ukraine should never join NATO, one of the Kremlin’s main conditions for end the war.
Mr. Trump’s victory in November sparked a wave of cautious optimism that the war could end soon, even if the ceasefire is unstable. But analysts say the process will be difficult and tedious, and many in Ukraine and elsewhere fear that Mr. Trump will want to push through a deal at the expense of surrender.
In Russia, political analyst Giorgy Bovt said that if a meeting between Mr Trump and Mr Putin takes place too soon, when “the conditions for peace are not yet ripe”, it could “lead to a more great escalation.
“Both warring parties are still betting on continued military action,” Mr. Bovt wrote in a message on Telegram, a popular messaging app. “They do not consider their strength exhausted.”
Tatiana Stanovaya, senior researcher at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center, wrote on social networks, “the higher the expectations of the meeting”, the riskier the game, especially for Trump.
