Relations between the US and Russia could collapse at any moment, according to an assessment coming out of the Kremlin on Monday.
The Russian government also declined to confirm whether president Vladimir Putin and president Donald Trump have spoken, as Trump claimed on Sunday.
Sergei Ryabkov, the Russian deputy foreign minister, said during a press conference Monday that relations with the US “are balancing on the brink of a breakup”, according to NBC News.
Ryabkov added that the war in Ukraine would continue until Kyiv no longer pushes for Nato accession and removes its forces from the four regions occupied by Russia.
“We simply imperatively need to get ... the new US administration to understand and acknowledge that without resolving the problems that are the root causes of the crisis in Ukraine, it will not be possible to reach an agreement,” said Ryabkov.
Also on Monday, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said he would “neither confirm nor deny” Trump’s assertion on Air Force One on Sunday that he and Putin had spoken. It would be the first officially acknowledged conversation between the two since 2022.
“Let’s just say I’ve had it ... and I expect to have many more conversations. We have to get that war ended,” said Trump on Sunday.
“I hate to see all these young people being killed. The soldiers are being killed by the hundreds of thousands,” he added.
But Trump chose not to divulge how many times he had spoken to Putin, insisting, “I’d better not say.”
Trump claimed during the campaign that he would be able to end the war in 24 hours but has yet to reveal a detailed peace plan. If Trump chooses to end American aid to Ukraine, Europe would struggle to fill the gap.
Senior Russia and Eurasia fellow at the think tank Chatham House in London, Keir Giles, told NBC News of Trump’s Sunday statement that “it would be tempting to think that this was all part of a careful plan for not releasing information too early in order not to bridge this process”.
“Or it could simply be that, as seems to be the case with Trump’s earlier promises of immediate action to bring the conflict to an end, that there isn’t, in fact, a plan yet,” said Giles, noting that things may clear up later this week when Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky attends the Munich Security Conference. Top US officials will also take part.
Mike Waltz, Trump’s national security adviser, appeared on NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday, saying that the US officials would be “talking through the details of how to end this war, and that will mean getting both sides to the table”.
He said the Trump administration was ready to “tax, to tariff, to sanction” Russia to get Putin to negotiate. But he also said the administration was ready to restrict its support for Ukraine to push Europe to increase its assistance.
Last week, Zelensky told ITV that he was ready to speak to the Russians but only if “I had an understanding that America and Europe will not abandon us and they will support us and provide security guarantees.”
On Sunday, he told Reuters that he would have to meet Trump before talks begin with Russia.
“Otherwise, it will look like a dialogue about Ukraine without Ukraine,” said Zelensky.
