Trump Wins US Presidential Election, Kremlin Expects Impact On War In Ukraine

Illustration of the US elections. (Wikimedia Commons/Phil Roeder)

JAKARTA - The Kremlin is looking forward to whether the end of the war in Ukraine that Donald Trump has said will prove or not, along with claims of victory in the 2024 United States presidential election by the Republican candidate.

Trump, who is paired with JD Vance, secured more than 270 electoral votes needed to win the presidency, according to projected by Edison Research.

The former president's victory in the State of Wisconsin pushed him over the threshold. As of 5:45 a.m. ET, Trump has won 279 electoral votes compared to 223 votes from his Democratic Party rival Kamala Harris paired with Team Walz, while results in several states have not been counted.

He also outperformed Harris with about 5 million votes in general vote count.

The Kremlin reacted carefully to this result, saying the US was still a hostile country and time would prove whether Trump's rhetoric about ending Ukraine's war would come true.

Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022 sparked the biggest confrontation between Moscow and the West since the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, when the Soviet Union and the US were nearing a nuclear war.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Trump had made several important statements about his desire to end Ukraine's war during his campaign, but only time would prove whether that statement would lead to action.

"Don't forget that we are talking about an unfriendly country, which directly and indirectly engages in the fight against our country" (in Ukraine), Peskov told reporters.

Peskov said he was not aware of President Vladimir Putin's plans to congratulate Trump on his victory, with Moscow-Washington relations at its lowest point in history.

"We have repeatedly said the US was able to contribute to ending this conflict. This cannot be done overnight, but the US is able to change the direction of its foreign policy. Will this happen, and if so, how, we will see after (the inauguration of the US president) January," Peskov explained.

Russian officials from Putin to the ground said ahead of the election it made no difference to Moscow who won the White House, even as Kremlin-guided state media coverage showed preference for Trump.

Meanwhile, Kirill Dmitriev, head of Russia's influential sovereign wealth fund, said Trump's victory could be an opportunity to improve relations.

"This opens up new opportunities to reorganize relations between Russia and the United States," added Dmitriev, a former Goldman Sachs banker who previously had contact with Trump's team.

Trump, 78, had previously promised to end the war in Ukraine immediately if elected, although he had not explained exactly how he would do so.

Meanwhile, President Putin said he was ready to talk about the possible end of the war, but the acquisition and territorial claims of Russia should be accepted, something Ukraine's leadership rejected as an unacceptable capitulation.