Kremlin Calls Communication With The United States Going Well, But No Instant Results

JAKARTA - The Kremlin said on Sunday that contact with United States President Donald Trump's team was going very well. However, it is too early to expect instant results due to the extent of damage to relations under Trump's predecessor, Joe Biden.

President Trump, who said he wanted to be remembered as a peaceful carrier, has repeatedly said he wants to end the three-year war "blood spill" in Ukraine, which his government now considers a proxy conflict between the United States and Russia, echoing Moscow's stance.

After a special envoy Steve Witkoff held talks with President Vladimir Putin, President Trump said on Saturday discussions aimed at ending the war might go well, but "there is a point where you have to give up or remain silent".

"Everything is going very well," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told Russian state television's most prominent Kremlin reporter, Pavel Zarubin, when asked about the differences in views on the relationship between Moscow and Washington.

Peskov said contacts were taking place at several levels, including through foreign ministries, intelligence agencies, and investment envoys of President Putin, Kirill Dmitriev.

"But, of course, it is impossible to expect instant results," Peskov said, citing what he called damage to bilateral relations under Biden.

Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022 sparked the worst confrontation between Moscow and the West since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, which was considered a time when the two Cold War superpowers almost carried out a deliberate nuclear war.

When Witkoff held talks with President Putin on Friday in the former capital of the Russian empire, St. Petersburg, about the search for a peace agreement for Ukraine, President Trump told Russia to "move".

President Putin is seen on state TV greeting Witkoff, who attaches his hand to his heart while greeting, early in talks and state news agencies later said the talks lasted more than four hours.

When asked if the meeting of the presidents of the two countries was getting closer, Peskov said the two powers "run along this road together very patiently" but efforts to restore relations require hard and serious work.

Kata-katanya menunjukkan pertemuan seperti itu "menyaknya lebih banyak kerja keras, membutuhkan lebih banyak waktu".

It is known that European and Ukrainian leaders described the 2022 invasion of imperial-style land grabbing by President Putin, with European leaders having repeatedly demanded that Russia be defeated on the battlefield, even though Moscow forces control nearly a fifth of Ukraine's territory.

President Putin himself described the war in Ukraine as part of a slumping battle with the West, which he said embarrassed Russia after the Berlin Wall collapsed in 1989 by expanding the NATO military alliance and violating what he considered Moscow's sphere of influence, including Ukraine.