The Kremlin said on Sunday that the dramatic pivot in the foreign policy of the US “largely” coincides with its own vision, with Donald Trump described as having “common sense”.
The US president, who has often said he respects his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin, has worked to build ties with Moscow since taking office in January, including twice siding with Russia in UN votes.
“The new administration is rapidly changing all foreign policy configurations,” the Kremlin spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, told a reporter from state television. “This largely coincides with our vision.”
Peskov added: “There is a long way to go, because there is huge damage to the whole complex of bilateral relations. But if the political will of the two leaders, President Putin and President Trump, is maintained, this path can be quite quick and successful.”
Peskov made the comments on Wednesday but they were only made public on Sunday, two days after Trump defended Putin during a fiery clash with the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, at the Oval Office on Friday.
Trump has upended US policy on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which marked its third anniversary last week. On Friday, he told Zelenskyy he was losing the war and had “no cards” to play.
Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, also praised Trump for his “commonsense” aim to end the war in Ukraine and accused European powers, who have rallied to support Zelenskyy and are meeting with the Ukrainian leader at a summit in London on Sunday, of seeking to prolong the conflict.
Trump “is a pragmatist”, Lavrov told the Russian military newspaper Krasnaya Zvezda, according to a transcript released by the foreign ministry. “His slogan is common sense. It means, as everyone can see, a shift to a different way of doing things.”
Lavrov said the US still sought to be the world’s most powerful country and that Washington and Moscow would never see eye to eye on everything, but they could resort to pragmatism when interests coincided.
The Kremlin often rebuked the former US president Joe Biden, accusing him in November of “adding fuel to the fire” by allowing Kyiv to use long-range missiles for strikes against Russia.
Lavrov said that after Biden’s administration, “people have come in who want to be guided by common sense. They say directly that they want to end all wars, they want peace. And who demands a ‘continuation of the banquet’ in the form of a war? Europe.”
But, Lavrov said, “the goal is still Maga (Make America Great Again)”, referring to Trump’s political slogan. “This gives a lively, human character to politics. That’s why it’s interesting to work with him.”
