The Kremlin celebrated President Donald Trump‘s radical overhaul of U.S. foreign policy, stating that America’s view of global affairs now “largely coincides with our vision.”
Kremlin press secretary Dmitry Peskov responded enthusiastically in an interview that aired Sunday to Trump opening lines of communication with Russian President Vladimir Putin and taking a stronger stance against Ukraine in discussions about how to end the war.
“This was truly impossible to imagine,” Peskov said, noting that the United States under Trump sided with Russia last week on two votes at the United Nations, downplaying its responsibility for invading Ukraine.
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“The new administration is rapidly changing [America’s] foreign policy configurations,” Peskov added. “This largely coincides with our vision.”
He noted that the two sides are attempting to re-establish “all relations,” though he said “there is a long way to go, because enormous damage has been done to the whole complex of bilateral relations.”
“But if the political will of the two leaders—President Putin and President Trump—is maintained, then this path can be done quite quickly and successfully," Peskov said.
It comes just two days after Trump and Vice President JD Vance berated Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in the Oval Office in full view of the nation’s press, trashing him as “disrespectful” and “ungrateful” for not sufficiently praising America for supporting his war-torn country.
Zelensky had resisted Trump’s demands that he do more to achieve a ceasefire agreement with Putin, who in 2022 ordered a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in violation of international law.
Russia under Putin has a long and sordid history of violating ceasefires and other agreements.
Trump has, in recent weeks, has spouted a series of Kremlin-aligned lies about Zelensky, calling the democratically elected leader a “dictator” and falsely claiming the Ukrainian leader had a four percent approval rating. (Trump later backtracked on his “dictator” remark.)
After Trump and Vance dressed down their visitor on Friday, talks with Ukraine about a potential economic partnership collapsed.
Zelensky asked for security guarantees in exchange for sharing revenues from his country’s national resources, while the Trump administration suggested the economic partnership implied a security guarantee because the country would have to back up its economic interests.
When asked by a reporter on Sunday about the developments,
While Trump’s relations with Zelensky appear at a nadir, U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer said Sunday that his country has agreed to work with France and Ukraine on a ceasefire plan to present to the Trump administration.
“We’ve now agreed that the United Kingdom, along with France and possibly one or two others, will work with Ukraine on a plan to stop the fighting, and then we’ll discuss that plan with the United States,” he told the BBC.
Starmer, who is hosting a summit of European leaders, rejected calls by the opposition Scottish National Party to cancel a state visit by Trump.
“I’m not going to be diverted by the SNP or others trying to ramp up the rhetoric without really appreciating what is the single most important thing at stake here–we’re talking about peace in Europe," he said.
