“Ball is in US court,” says Russia’s FM Lavrov on contacts with Trump administration: Report

Days after the Kremlin denied media reports that US President-elect Donald Trump held a call with Vladimir Putin, in which he is said to have warned the Russian president against escalating the war in Ukraine, Russia’s foreign minister on Thursday said that his country has no expectations from the new US administration, but will assess its concrete steps.

Russia is open to contact with the US under the Donald Trump administration, but the ball is in the US court, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in an interview with journalist Marina Kim as reported in by its state media TASS.

“President Putin said at a meeting of the Valdai International Discussion Club that he is always ready to communicate. It was not us who interrupted the communication: the ball is in the US court,” Lavrov said in response to a question, the media outlet reported.

“There will be no expectations and no assumptions. We will judge by concrete cases,” Russia’s top diplomat noted.

The Washington Post on Sunday reported that a call between the two leaders had taken place last week, following the declaration of the results of the US presidential elections. However, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said the reports were “pure fiction.”

Further, Lavrov on Thursday said that containing China will be a priority task for the United States under Donald Trump, while Washington views Russia as a “present-day threat.”

“The task of containing China was set by the administration of Joe Biden. I assume it will remain a priority for the administration of Donald Trump, too. And we are the ‘threat’ of today. Washington cannot allow Russia to prove that it is a powerful player or undermine the West’s reputation,” Lavrov said.

“Any US administration”, he said, “wants a weaker Russia and seeks to suppress it as a rival.” He pointed out that the Americans had long declared the idea that “there should be no country in the world more influential than the United States.”

The Russian minister said that the US cares more for its reputation and does not care about the real fates of people, in particular of the Ukrainians.

“They don’t care about Ukraine. They care about their reputation: they once said that Ukraine would have this government, but suddenly someone dared to object. Russia? A large country, indeed, but it needs to be put in its place. This is what it’s all about, it’s not about the fate of the Ukrainian people at all. They don’t care about the people,” the minister was cited as saying by the state media.

Asked about a truce between Russia and Ukraine, Lavrov reiterated, “Russian President Putin has repeatedly said that we have never refused to negotiate.”

According to him, “none of those in the Republican camp who reportedly offer breakthrough ideas on how to end the Ukraine conflict has mentioned the need to restore the right of the Ukrainian population to speak Russian, learn, teach and receive information in Russian.”

Meanwhile, US President-elect Donald Trump plans to appoint a special envoy to hold talks on a peaceful solution to the conflict in Ukraine according to US TV channel Fox News which cited multiple sources.

“You’re going to see a very senior special envoy, someone with a lot of credibility, who will be given a task to find a resolution, to get to a peace settlement,” one of the sources said in the report on Wednesday. “You’re going to see that in short order,” it said.

According to Fox News, the job is not expected to be a salaried role; Kurt Volker served as a special representative to Ukrainian negotiations on a volunteer basis in 2017-19.

Previously, Russia’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova, ahead of the US presidential election, said that it makes no difference for Russia what the election outcome will be, given the two-party consensus that emerged in the United States regarding the confrontation toward the country.

“If anything changes in the US policy and any proposals to us appear, we will be ready to examine them in terms of matching Russia’s interests. In any case Russia will resolutely defend its interests, particularly where national security is concerned,” she had said.