Kremlin Says ‘Let’s See’ If Trump Victory Will Help End Ukraine War

 Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump speaks at an election night watch party at the Palm Beach Convention Center, Wednesday, Nov. 6, 2024, in West Palm Beach, Fla. (AP)
Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump speaks at an election night watch party at the Palm Beach Convention Center, Wednesday, Nov. 6, 2024, in West Palm Beach, Fla. (AP)
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Kremlin Says ‘Let’s See’ If Trump Victory Will Help End Ukraine War

 Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump speaks at an election night watch party at the Palm Beach Convention Center, Wednesday, Nov. 6, 2024, in West Palm Beach, Fla. (AP)
Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump speaks at an election night watch party at the Palm Beach Convention Center, Wednesday, Nov. 6, 2024, in West Palm Beach, Fla. (AP)

The Kremlin reacted cautiously on Wednesday after Donald Trump declared victory in the US presidential election, saying the US was still a hostile state and that time would tell if Trump rhetoric on ending the Ukraine war translated into reality.

Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022 triggered the biggest confrontation between Moscow and the West since the 1962 Cuban missile crisis when the Soviet Union and the US came close to nuclear war.

Trump, a Republican, claimed victory in the 2024 presidential contest defeating Democrat Kamala Harris, capping a stunning political comeback four years after he left the White House.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Trump had made some important statements about wanting to end the Ukraine war during his campaign, but only time would tell if they will lead to action.

"Let us not forget that we are talking about an unfriendly country, which is both directly and indirectly involved in a war against our state" (in Ukraine)," Peskov told reporters.

Peskov said he was not aware of any plans by President Vladimir Putin to congratulate Trump on his victory and that relations with Washington were at an historic low.

"We have repeatedly said that the US is able to contribute to the end of this conflict. This cannot be done overnight, but... the US is capable of changing the trajectory of its foreign policy. Will this happen, and if so, how ... we will see after (the US president's inauguration in) January."

Russian and US diplomats say relations between the world's two largest nuclear powers have only been worse during the depths of the Cold War. Russian officials from Putin down said ahead of the election that it made no difference to Moscow who won the White House, even as Kremlin-guided state media coverage showed a preference for Trump.

Kirill Dmitriev, the influential head of Russia's sovereign wealth fund, said a Trump victory could be a chance to repair ties.

"This opens up new opportunities for resetting relations between Russia and the United States," added Dmitriev, a former Goldman Sachs banker who has previously had contacts with the Trump team.

In 2009, then US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton proposed a "reset" with Moscow, but due to an apparent translation error presented Moscow with a symbolic button labelled "overload" in Russian instead of "reset".

Despite the "reset", relations between Putin and then US President Barack Obama soured.

WAR IN UKRAINE

Trump, 78, has promised to swiftly end the war in Ukraine if elected, though he has not explained exactly how he would do that.

Putin has said he is ready to talk about a possible end to the war, but that Russia's territorial gains and claims must be accepted, something that the Ukrainian leadership rejected as an unacceptable capitulation.

Russian forces are advancing at the fastest pace in at least a year in Ukraine and control about one fifth of the country.

That includes Crimea, which Moscow annexed from Ukraine in 2014, about 80% of the Donbas - a coal-and-steel zone - and more than 70% of the Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions.

Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said on Wednesday that Trump's win would probably be bad news for Ukraine, which relies on Washington as its top military backer.

"Trump has one useful quality for us: as a businessman to the core, he mortally dislikes spending money on various hangers–on," Medvedev, now a senior security official, posted on his Telegram account.

"The question is how much Trump will be forced to give to the war. He's stubborn, but the system is stronger," he said.



China Will Work with US, Government Says, but More Rivalry Expected under Trump

China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson, Mao Ning, during a press conference on the US elections, in Beijing, China, 06 November 2024. (EPA)
China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson, Mao Ning, during a press conference on the US elections, in Beijing, China, 06 November 2024. (EPA)
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China Will Work with US, Government Says, but More Rivalry Expected under Trump

China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson, Mao Ning, during a press conference on the US elections, in Beijing, China, 06 November 2024. (EPA)
China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson, Mao Ning, during a press conference on the US elections, in Beijing, China, 06 November 2024. (EPA)

China will work with the US on the basis of mutual respect, it said on Wednesday as Donald Trump closed in on victory in the presidential election, but strategists said Beijing was bracing for bitter superpower rivalry over trade, technology and security issues.

"Our policy towards the US is consistent," Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Mao Ning told a regular press conference in Beijing, when asked how Trump returning to the Oval Office would affect US-China relations.

"We will continue to view and handle China-US relations in accordance with the principles of mutual respect, peaceful co-existence and win-win cooperation," she added.

Chinese strategists however said they expected more fiery rhetoric and potentially crippling tariffs from Trump, although some said his isolationist foreign policy could give Beijing a vacuum to expand its global influence.

"Beijing anticipated a close race in the US election. Although Trump's victory is not China's preferred outcome and raises concerns, it is not entirely unexpected," said Tong Zhao, senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

"The Chinese leadership will likely strive to maintain an appearance of a cordial personal relationship with Trump, while intensifying efforts to project China's power and strength."

Da Wei, director of the Center for International Security and Strategy at Tsinghua University in Beijing, said Trump's victory "may pose a relatively large challenge to Sino-US relations" based on his campaign policy proposals and actions in his previous term.

"Due to Trump's high unpredictability, I think it is difficult for China to say that there is a fully formed plan to do "x" when Trump comes to power. It also depends on what policies the Trump administration implements."

TRUMP TARIFF THREAT

Trump has proposed tariffs on Chinese imports in excess of 60% and ending China’s most-favored-nation trading status, and analysts say the prospect of a trade war has rattled China's leadership.

China sells goods worth more than $400 billion annually to the US and hundreds of billions more in components for products Americans buy from elsewhere.

"Beijing is particularly wary of a potential revival of the trade war under Trump, especially as China currently faces significant internal economic challenges," said Zhao.

"China also expects Trump to accelerate the decoupling of technologies and supply chains, a move that could threaten China's economic growth and indirectly impact its social and political stability."

In response, China is likely to intensify its push for greater technological and economic self-sufficiency, while feeling more pressure to bolster economic ties with countries like Russia, he added.

"Going forward, Beijing would likely be drawing up a list of clear bargains and interest tradeoffs that it could float with Washington, in hope that it can focus on its much-needed domestic economic concerns whilst Trump's attention is occupied elsewhere," said Brian Wong, assistant professor at the University of Hong Kong who studies grand strategy.

GLOBAL POWER VACUUM

China is likely to shore up ties with the Global South, Europe and Northeast Asian countries in the event of a Trump win, given his "transactional, isolationist, anti-globalist and anti-multilateral foreign policy", said Wong.

Chinese President Xi Jinping and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi reached a rare rapprochement last month, while Beijing has tentatively reached out to the new Japanese administration this autumn following years of strained relations.

"China expects the second Trump administration to further disengage from international agreements and commitments, creating opportunities for China to expand its influence in emerging power vacuums," Zhao added.

Trump has unnerved democratically governed Taiwan by saying it should pay Washington for its defense and that it had taken US semiconductor business.

"The Biden administration applied high-pressure tactics to China on Taiwan, with US troops stationed in Taiwan and even giving weapons to Taiwan ... in a huge break with the former Trump administration's Taiwan policy," said Shen Dingli, an international relations scholar in Shanghai. Washington last month approved a US$2 billion arms sale to Taiwan.

"Trump is not too likely to give Taiwan the same support in future."