Moscow right to be ‘cautious’ about Trump’s peace efforts – RT contributor
Moscow is certainly right to remain cautious about the incoming Trump administration and be very clear about its conditions for resolving the Ukraine conflict, RT.com contributor Tarik Cyril Amar has said.
An associate professor at Koc University in Istanbul, Amar was reacting to the latest statements on possible peace talks by Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.
Russia is open to consultations with the Trump administration and hopes for an understanding of the conflict’s root causes, Lavrov said on Thursday during his annual online press conference.
The foreign minister also stressed that Moscow will not be satisfied by “empty talks,” noting that a lot of the suggestions about resolving the conflict include establishing “some kind of truce.” According to Lavrov, it “isn’t particularly hidden” that Ukraine would use such a ceasefire to regroup, receive more weapons from the West, and carry out an additional mobilization.
Amar said that if Trump and his team insist on a truce only, talks will either not happen or fail quickly.
According to him, a truce is one of the three main scenarios in play, with the other two being a full-fledged peace, and a full-fledged peace plus a fundamental reset of the security architecture in Europe.
“The good news is that Lavrov is – actually – signaling that Russia will not insist on scenario three, which it hypothetically could, but is ready to work on two only, which is already a concession on Moscow’s side,” Amar said.
He further claimed that while it’s unclear whether the Trump team will understand this, much will depend on how realistic they are about Russia’s position.
“If they really believe exaggerated claims about Russian exhaustion that will be in the way of finding a compromise. And do they understand the risks of not finding an end to the war through negotiation, namely, that Ukraine and the West will lose even worse?”
The crucial question, according to Amar, is whether the new US administration finally accepts the fact they cannot shape the outcome of the Ukraine conflict as they wish but will have to fully take Russian demands into account.
Otherwise, they will try to use a continuation of the conflict to keep their “EU-NATO vassals dependent and financially bleeding,” perhaps even blackmailing them into spending more on the US-led military bloc, the professor suggested.
“The only thing that seems certain at this point is that Moscow can’t simply rely on the incoming Trump administration to be reasonable and constructive about the Ukraine war,” Amar concluded.
Lavrov said earlier that Moscow has no illusions about the possibility of an easy settlement of the Ukraine conflict when Trump assumes office even though the president-elect has repeatedly vowed to quickly end the fighting.
