By Gleb Stolyarov
MOSCOW (Reuters) – The Kremlin said on Monday that it had so far had no contact with Donald Trump or his team after the U.S. president-elect called for an immediate ceasefire and negotiations between Ukraine and Russia to end “the madness” of war.
Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine has left tens of thousands of dead, displaced millions and triggered the biggest crisis in relations between Moscow and the West since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis.
Trump said Ukraine had lost some 400,000 soldiers while Russia had lost 600,000 dead and wounded. Russia does not disclose its losses but Ukrainian President Volodymr Zelenskiy said 43,000 soldiers had been killed in the war and that there had been 370,000 wounded soldiers.
Asked if there had been any contact with Trump or his team, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said: “No, there have still been no contacts.”
Peskov said the Kremlin had made its position clear during a rare Sunday statement.
The Kremlin said on Sunday that Russia was open to talks, but that they had to be based on agreements reached in Istanbul in 2022 and on current realities on the battlefield where Russian forces have been pushing forward at their fastest rate since the early days of the war.
Trump, who has vowed to swiftly end the conflict, is returning to the White House at a time of Russian ascendancy. Moscow controls a chunk of Ukraine about the size of the American state of Virginia and is advancing at the fastest pace since the early days of the 2022 invasion.
Putin has said that Ukraine must not join the NATO military alliance and that Russia should be left fully in control of four Ukrainian regions his troops partially control at the moment for a peace deal to be done.
Reuters reported last month that Putin is open to discussing a Ukraine ceasefire deal with Trump but rules out making any major territorial concessions and insists Kyiv abandon ambitions to join NATO.
(Reporting by Gleb Stolyarov; editing by Guy Faulconbridge)
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